Department of Ophthalmology, Hospital General Universitario Gregorio Marañón, Madrid, Spain.
PLoS One. 2022 May 27;17(5):e0268975. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0268975. eCollection 2022.
On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19-the infectious disease caused by SARS-CoV-2-a pandemic. Since then, the majority of countries-including Spain-have imposed strict restrictions in order to stop the spread of the virus and the collapse of the health systems. People's health care-seeking behavior has exhibited a change, not only in those months when the COVID-19 control measures were strictest, but also in the months that followed. We aimed to examine how the trends in ophthalmological emergencies changed during the COVID-19 pandemic in one of the largest tertiary referral hospitals in Spain. To this end, data from all the patients that attended the ophthalmological emergency department during the pandemic period-March 2020 to February 2021-were retrospectively collected and compared with data from the previous year. Moreover, a comparison between April 2020-when the restrictions were most severe-and April 2019 was made. A total of 90,694 patients were included. As expected, there was a decrease in the number of consultations. There was also a decrease in the frequency of conjunctival pathology consultations. These changes may bring to light not only the use that people make of the emergency department, but also the new trends in ophthalmological conditions derived from the hygienic habits that the COVID-19 pandemic has established.
2020 年 3 月 11 日，世界卫生组织宣布 COVID-19（由 SARS-CoV-2 引起的传染病）为大流行。此后，包括西班牙在内的大多数国家都实施了严格的限制措施，以阻止病毒传播和卫生系统崩溃。人们的医疗保健寻求行为发生了变化，不仅在 COVID-19 控制措施最严格的几个月，而且在随后的几个月也是如此。我们旨在研究在西班牙最大的三级转诊医院之一，COVID-19 大流行期间眼科急症的趋势如何变化。为此，我们回顾性地收集了大流行期间（2020 年 3 月至 2021 年 2 月）所有到眼科急诊就诊的患者的数据，并将其与前一年的数据进行了比较。此外，还比较了 2020 年 4 月（限制最严格时）和 2019 年 4 月的数据。共纳入 90694 例患者。不出所料，就诊人数有所减少。结膜病变就诊的频率也有所下降。这些变化不仅揭示了人们对急诊的使用情况，还揭示了 COVID-19 大流行所建立的卫生习惯带来的眼科疾病新趋势。
