Eye-related emergency visits during the early phase of the coronavirus disease pandemic in a reference hospital in Sao Paulo, Brazil

Abstract

To evaluate the profile of emergency eye-related visits at a reference eye hospital in Sao Paulo during the first months of the quarantine due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic and to compare it with that in the same period of the previous year. Methods: Data were obtained from the emergency department of Ophthal Hospital Especializado, Sao Paulo, Brazil. All the cases registered between March 23 and May 19, 2020, were included in the study as Group 2020. The cases registered between March 23 and May 19, 2019, were included in the study as Group 2019. Frequency tables were used for the descriptive analyses. The chi-square and Fisher exact tests were applied to compare categorical variables between the groups. Results: We observe a decrease of 46.15% in the number of cases during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 compared with the same period in 2019. We observed a significant increase in the incidence rates of the following pathologies in 2020 compared with 2019: eyelid disorders (12.3%), corneal disorders (97.1%), retinal pathologies (173.1%), refraction (62.9%), glaucoma (acute and chronic; 43.9%), scleral alterations (68.8%), trauma (39.3%), herpes (54.7%), and cataracts (549.9%). On the other hand, the incidence rates of the following disorders decreased: conjunctivitis (-33.4%), disorders of lacrimal system (-81.0%), iridocyclitis (-39.9%), and postoperative visits (-80.1%). Conclusion: During the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, we observed a drastic decrease in the number of patients who visited the emergency eye service. The main reasons for visiting were also changed, with higher frequencies of high-severity cases such as retina disturbances, cornea disturbances, glaucoma, and trauma and lower frequencies of transmittable conditions such as conjunctivitis.

The effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on eye-related emergency visits

“…General emergency visits were reported to have decreased up to 72.5% in India, while ocular emergency consultations were reported to have decreased up to 53.1% in the United Kingdom, very close to the results found in our study. (12)(13)(14) Another study performed in a private service in São Paulo has shown a decrease of 46.2%, (15) slightly lower than our results from a public service.…”