Abstract
Purpose :
Knowing the main complaints and main eye health problems of a region can help to improve the management of public resources and to design strategies aimed at reducing and controlling visual loss and blindness. Knowledge of the prevalence of ophthalmological urgency is extremely important, since it provides information for the planning of preventive strategies and the establishment of public health policies.
The objective of the present study is to evaluate the epidemiological and demand profile of the ophthalmologic care from the Santo André Municipal Hospital Center of the ABC Medical School, which attends patients with ocular complaints from the Unified Health System (SUS), covering the entire Greater ABC region (2.7 million habitants).
Methods :
A cross-sectional and retrospective study involving 165,714 patients attended in the years 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2016. The data were collected from the care records made at the CHMSA-FMABC at the hospital emergency room during the same period. Patients without complete data or returns on the same day were excluded. The requested returns were computed as "returns" in our database.
Results :
A total of 165714 patients were attended in the analyzed period, being 52.25% men and 47.75% women. The mean age was 36.91 years with a standard deviation of 19.86 years. External diseases (56.22%) and ocular traumas (13.65%) were the main causes of the visits, 6.35% of the patients were returns and 12.49% had no alterations in the examination. Another 69 diagnoses with more than 100 visits were recorded in this period covering all areas within the ophthalmology, the other diagnoses were all included with the description of "others" and were responsible for 4.76% of the records. A total of 2,231 (1.35%) patients were excluded from the study.
Conclusions :
This study describes the epidemiological profile of urgent care in ophthalmology at the Emergency Room of CHM - Santo André between 2011 and 2016, highlighting the changes that occurred in the last decade in the population profile and also exposing deficiencies in the public health service in ophthalmology. The deficiency of ophthalmologic care by the public network causes the need for serious patients to be followed in the emergency room, even with outpatient follow up illnesses, such as patients with advanced glaucoma.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2018 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Honolulu, Hawaii, April 29 - May 3, 2018.