Eye injury registries - A systematic review

Objectives: Registries are integral to monitoring, surveying, treating, preventing and prognosticating trauma. The quantity and quality of data must justify a change or intervention in treatment and/or preventive strategies and must be collected while balancing the cost and time invested in the registry. This review documents the quality, completeness and operational and funding models for ocular trauma registries worldwide.

Methods: The databases CENTRAL, MEDLINE, EMBASE and Informit Health Collection were searched using key word and mesh terms for: "Eye injury, "Ocular trauma", "Eye injury prevention", "Eye protection", "Registry". To find relevant unpublished articles and theses, clinicaltrials.gov, Trip, MedNar and Google Scholar were searched using the key words "eye injury" OR "ocular trauma" AND "registry*". No date or language restrictions were applied. The quality of registry data was assessed against published measures including design, operation and data quality.

Results: The electronic search retrieved 528 distinct published articles; 61 articles were assessed for eligibility. Of the 61 articles identified, 28 were eligible to be included in the review, with cross-referencing identifying a further 7 articles. The source of most articles on ocular trauma registries was the United States, followed by Germany and China. Patient follow-up was conducted in 31 studies, with 6 months being the most frequently reported period. Issues with data quality included incomplete data such as presence or absence of eye protection and initial visual acuity. Attrition bias was controlled by the United States Eye Injury Register with follow-up. Patients without follow-up data were removed for some studies and this may have introduced bias.

Conclusion: National, state and hospital-based ocular trauma registries have contributed significantly to our understanding of ocular trauma. The United States has the most frequently cited and well-resourced ocular trauma registries. It is anticipated that this review will guide the development of future registries for ocular trauma in order to inform evidence-based prevention strategies and, ultimately, improve visual outcomes. We recommend the development of a consensus guidelines for international ocular trauma registry that includes mechanism and context of injury and visual outcomes, to permit international comparison that can be implemented at low cost with secure data capture.