Ocular morbidity during nationwide lockdown among patients attending ophthalmic department in a tertiary care center

Abstract

During this pandemic times majority of the people with ocular complaints were either scared to approach health facility, fearing the chances of contracting the disease, COVID -19 or due to lack of regular functioning of ophthalmic clinics. Hence it is important to understand about the pattern of ocular morbidity during this phased relaxation of lock down. This cross sectional hospital based study was conducted in the outpatient department of Ophthalmology at Sri Muthukumaran Medical College Hospital and Research Institute, Chennai, from September 2019 to November 2019. A total of 234 patients were included in the study. Data analysis was done using SPSS version 18. Common ocular morbidity reported was refractive errors (35.9%) followed by cataract (20.1%), pseudophakia (11.1%), conjunctivitis (9%), age related macular degeneration (7.3%), blepheritis (5.6%), foreign body (5.6%), retinopathies (4.7%), glaucoma (3%) and corneal opacity (2.6%). Also 17.5% of cases reported that they had ocular complaints during the complete lock down. Pattern of ocular morbidity during the lock down was found to be similar to the pattern prevailed before the pandemic COVID 19. Considerable proportion of cases reported ophthalmic complaints during the nationwide lockdown and hence policies should be made in such a way that during these unexpected circumstances also, the essential ophthalmic care centers should be functional with easy access to the population.