With 45% of intimate partner violence (IPV) resulting in ocular injuries and women being 1.5 times more likely to be victims, Australian researchers are urging ophthalmologists to be vigilant when it comes to female patients with ocular trauma.
Commenting on Alik et al’s JAMA Ophthalmology paper on the epidemiology of orbital injuries relating to domestic violence in the US¹, Dr Annette Hoskin from the University of Sydney’s Save Sight Institute and Professor Stephanie Watson, head of Save Sight Institute’s Corneal Research Group, said ophthalmologists may have an important role to play in identifying IPV victims.
While sex, race and ethnicity, and socioeconomic status were the highest IPV risk factors in the US study, drug and alcohol abuse were also cited by Alik et al. A previous Dr Hoskin and Prof Watson paper reported 30% of ocular trauma cases at a regional Australian hospital involved alcohol, rising to 76% in assault-related cases and 85.2% for Indigenous Australians.
Dr Hoskin and Prof Watson concluded that giving ophthalmologists better access to IPV screening tools would likely reduce ocular morbidity. Resources such as the International Globe and Adnexal Trauma Epidemiology Study (IGATES) may help better identify risk factors for and the prevalence of these injuries, they said.
