Ocular related emergencies in Spain during the COVID-19 pandemic, a multicenter study

Puzo, M. ; Sánchez-Monroy, J. ; Porcar-Plana, C.A. ; Bartol-Puyal, F. de Asís (Universidad de Zaragoza) ; Dotti-Boada, M. ; Peña-Urbina, P. ; Izquierdo-Serra, J. ; López-Montero, A. ; Pérez-García, P. ; Bordonaba-Bosque, D. (Universidad de Zaragoza) ; Pablo, L.E. (Universidad de Zaragoza) ; Calvo, P.

Resumen: Purpose: To evaluate ophthalmological emergencies (OE) during the COVID-19 pandemic comparing them with the same period of the previous year. Methods: Retrospective observational study of all OE visits in four tertiary hospitals in Spain comparing data from March 16th to April 30th, 2020 (COVID-19 period) and the same period of 2019 (pre-COVID-19 period). Severity of the conditions was assessed following Channa et al. publication. Data on demographics, diagnosis and treatments were collected from Electronic Medical Records. Results: During lockdown, OE significantly declined by 75.18%, from 7, 730 registered in the pre-COVID-19 period to 1, 928 attended during the COVID-19 period (p < 0.001). In 2019, 23.86% of visits were classified as emergent, 59.50% as non-emergent, and 16.65% could not be determined. In 2020, the percentage of emergent visits increased up to 29.77%, non-emergent visits significantly decreased to 52.92% (p < 0.001), and 17.31% of the visits were classified as “could not determine”. During the pandemic, people aged between 45 and 65 years old represented the largest attending group (37.89%), compared to 2019, where patients over 65 years were the majority (39.80%). In 2019, most frequent diagnosis was unspecified acute conjunctivitis (11.59%), followed by vitreous degeneration (6.47%), and punctate keratitis (5.86%). During the COVID-19 period, vitreous degeneration was the first cause for consultation (9.28%), followed by unspecified acute conjunctivitis (5.63%) and punctate keratitis (5.85%). Conclusions: OE visits dropped significantly during the pandemic in Spain (75.18%), although more than half were classified as non-urgent conditions, indicating a lack of understanding of the really emergent ocular pathologies among population. © 2021, The Author(s).

Idioma: Inglés

DOI: 10.1186/s12886-021-02169-x

Año: 2021

Publicado en: BMC OPHTHALMOLOGY 21, 1 (2021), 408 [10 pp]
ISSN: 1471-2415

Factor impacto JCR: 2.086 (2021)

Categ. JCR: OPHTHALMOLOGY rank: 41 / 62 = 0.661 (2021) - Q3 - T3

Factor impacto CITESCORE: 3.0 - Medicine (Q2)

Factor impacto SCIMAGO: 0.788 - Ophthalmology (Q2) - Medicine (miscellaneous) (Q2)

Tipo y forma: Article (Published version)

Área (Departamento): Área Métodos Cuant.Econ.Empres (Dpto. Economía Aplicada)
Área (Departamento): Área Oftalmología (Dpto. Cirugía)