부산대학교 도서관

Background. A highly infectious RNA virus known as Severe Acute Respiratory Corona Virus 2 is known to be responsible for recent Corona pandemic (SARS - COV-2). The latest pandemic lockdown caused thousands of ophthalmic administrations to be cancelled, including hospital appointments and surgical procedures. Due to unpredictability of times, patient's fear of getting their cataract surgery during the facilitation of COVID-19 lockdown should not be overlooked. A study was conducted in order to ascertain the experience of patients while waiting for cataract surgery during the pandemic and their desire to have their operation after lockdown relaxation. Objective. To assess patient's perception while waiting for cataract surgery as well as to assess the time period of delay in surgery due to covid-19 lockdown. Methodology: It was a cross sectional study for three months at Ophthalmic unit III, Sindh Institute of Visual and Ophthalmic Sciences, after approval by ethical committee. Total 380 patients with cataract reported to ophthalmic OPD were included in this study. Informed consent was taken and proformas were explained to the patient in their mode of language, to assess the patients' knowledge as well as their possible perception in decision and willingness to delay in surgery during covid-19 duration, their visual condition during the delay. Results: The study included 162 (42.6%) male patients and 218 (57.3%) female patients in total. The majority of the male patients were between the ages of 45-68 were as females were between the ages of 40 -70. The results showed only 22 (5.78%) patients had co-morbidities (Diabetes & Hypertension). Vision related quality of life for patients before cataract surgery showed that most of the patients had slight difficulty in vision 335(88.15%) patients while 32 (8.42%) patients had severe difficulty and 13(3.42%) patients had moderate difficulty of vision. During COVID-19 pandemic only 115 (30.3%) patients showed their willingness to attend clinics while 265(69.7%) patients were not willing to attend, may be due to increased awareness regarding spread & preventive measures of COVID-19. Conclusion. In this study most of the patients were female with early cataract as compared to male patients while almost majority of the patients were financially from low socioeconomic income population. Even with this reasonable sample size most of the patients had no co-morbid conditions especially diabetes and hypertension which is quite prevalent in our society, the reason could be lack of liaison between general health care Government hospitals and eye care providing facilities like Sindh Institute of Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences in whole of Sindh province. Patients were astonishingly almost all of them aware of the COVID-19 preventive measures, this could have been due to frequent public messages on cell phones, radio and television media by the Government. Nevertheless the patients were mostly from remote areas and had difficulties in transport, limited outpatient services due to COVID-19 lockdowns but still most of them were willing to visit hospitals may be due to the social taboo that people who have cataract will go blind. Considering visual needs most of the patients had acceptable vision to carry out their routine work but still reasonable number of patients were very much concerned about the delay of their cataract surgery. Finally we would suggest that planning and delivering better services to the patients in need could only be achieved by constant evaluation and improvement and that can only be achieved by frequent research on basic problems faced by underprivileged section of population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]