Effective management of exposure keratopathy developed in intensive care units: The impact of an evidence based eye care education programme

Objectives: To assess the impact of eye care education on the incidence of corneal exposure in intensive care units (ICU). Research methodology/design: Approximately 300 ICU personnel were educated about eye care to reduce the incidence of corneal exposure. The patients were divided into two groups: pretraining (Group 1: Between February 1, 2011 and March 31, 2011 [2 months]) and post-training periods (Group 2: Between April 1, 2011 and April 1 2012 [1 year]). We compared the groups for keratopathy incidence to evaluate the efficacy of this education. Results: The number of patients were 762 in Group 1 and 6196 in Group 2 (p=0.335). Medians of patients followed in pre training ICU and post training ICU for each month were found to be 476 (interquartile range, 433-539) and 515 (interquartile range, 490-528). Exposure keratopathy was identified in 8 eyes of 6 patients (3 males and 3 females) in pre training ICU with the mean age of 27.6 +/- 31.8 years and 5 eyes of 3 patients (1 male and 2 females) in post training ICU with the mean age of 41.3 +/- 32.1 years. No significant difference was noticed between two groups in terms of the medians of patients followed in ICUs for each month (p =0.335). The time of hospitalisation in ICU when the patients were consulted for the first ocular assessment in pre training ICU and post training ICU were found to be 13 +/- 8.7 days and 8 +/- 1.7 days, respectively. After the training, the decrease in incidence of exposure keratopathy was found to be highly significant (p<0.001). Conclusion: We observed a highly significant reduction in the incidence of corneal exposure, following the eye-care education programme. (C) 2013 Published by Elsevier Ltd.