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Changing trends in ophthalmological emergencies during the COVID-19 pandemic
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...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9140243/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35622877 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0268975 |
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author | Escribano Villafruela, José de Urquía Cobo, Antonio Martín Luengo, Fátima Antón Modrego, Víctor Chamorro González-Cuevas, María |
author_facet | Escribano Villafruela, José de Urquía Cobo, Antonio Martín Luengo, Fátima Antón Modrego, Víctor Chamorro González-Cuevas, María |
author_sort | Escribano Villafruela, José |
collection | PubMed |
description | 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. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9140243 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-91402432022-05-28 Changing trends in ophthalmological emergencies during the COVID-19 pandemic Escribano Villafruela, José de Urquía Cobo, Antonio Martín Luengo, Fátima Antón Modrego, Víctor Chamorro González-Cuevas, María PLoS One Research Article 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. Public Library of Science 2022-05-27 /pmc/articles/PMC9140243/ /pubmed/35622877 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0268975 Text en © 2022 Escribano Villafruela et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Escribano Villafruela, José de Urquía Cobo, Antonio Martín Luengo, Fátima Antón Modrego, Víctor Chamorro González-Cuevas, María Changing trends in ophthalmological emergencies during the COVID-19 pandemic |
title | Changing trends in ophthalmological emergencies during the COVID-19 pandemic |
title_full | Changing trends in ophthalmological emergencies during the COVID-19 pandemic |
title_fullStr | Changing trends in ophthalmological emergencies during the COVID-19 pandemic |
title_full_unstemmed | Changing trends in ophthalmological emergencies during the COVID-19 pandemic |
title_short | Changing trends in ophthalmological emergencies during the COVID-19 pandemic |
title_sort | changing trends in ophthalmological emergencies during the covid-19 pandemic |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9140243/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35622877 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0268975 |
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