Knowledge, attitude, and practice of ophthalmic manifestations in COVID-19 patients at a tertiary care center

PURPOSE: Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, various manifestations have been reported, including ophthalmic symptoms, especially with the different mutations and variants that have occurred over the last few years. In view of this, our study was conducted to gauge the knowledge, attitude, and practices of patients toward the ophthalmic manifestations of COVID-19. METHODS: This was a hospital-based, cross-sectional, observational study. Patients who had tested positive for COVID-19 were asked to answer a detailed questionnaire about their knowledge of COVID-19 ophthalmic symptoms, their experience with the symptoms, and their attitude and practice toward the same. The data collected was analyzed using Microsoft Excel, and the Chi-squared test was used to determine significant differences in the results among different demographic profiles. RESULTS: Our study found that 82 (39%) of the 210 participants were aware that COVID-19 could present with symptoms in the eyes. A total of 47 participants had experienced eye symptoms of COVID-19. Among them, only 15 (31.91%) consulted and received treatment from an ophthalmologist or general physician for the same. Most of them (59.57%) did not seek any treatment, and 8.5% self-medicated or used non-allopathic forms of medicine. The most common symptom was redness of the eyes, reported by 57.44% of those who had eye symptoms. CONCLUSION: Most people were unaware of ocular manifestations of COVID-19 and most of those who were aware were medical professionals. Amongst those who developed symptoms, only a minority sought medical treatment.