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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...

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Autores principales: Escribano Villafruela, José, de Urquía Cobo, Antonio, Martín Luengo, Fátima, Antón Modrego, Víctor, Chamorro González-Cuevas, María
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2022
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.
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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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