Vijay Krishnan B

Abstract

Background: 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. Materials and Methods: 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. Results: 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. Conclusion: 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. Keywords: Ocular morbidity, COVID19, Lockdown, Pandemic.

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Abstract

Background: Awareness and knowledge about glaucoma plays a major role is changing the people’s health seeking behavior for regular eye checkups which in turn leads to early detection and treatment of glaucoma and other ophthalmic disorders also and thus this study was planned. Materials and Methods: 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 220 patients were included in the study. Data analysis was done using SPSS version 18. Results: Awareness about glaucoma was reported among 21.4% of participants and among them only 40.4% had knowledge that increased intraocular pressure (IOP) is the cause for glaucoma. Also 31.9%, 40.4%, 44.7%, 2.1%, 14.9% and 34% of participants reported that obesity, diabetes mellitus, hypertension, steroids, alcohol and smoking and family history of glaucoma were the risk factors of glaucoma. Degree holders and employed participants were found to be significantly associated with better awareness of glaucoma. Conclusion: Awareness about glaucoma in this study was poor and knowledge is still worse. This shows that we are in high time to health educate the people especially the target population about glaucoma, which causes preventable blindness. Keywords: Glaucoma, Awareness, Knowledge, Blindness.

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