Patient and clinician perspectives of ophthalmology emergency attendances during the COVID 19 pandemic.

Introduction: To explore patient and clinician perspectives on acute ophthalmology presentations during the COVID pandemic. To ascertain whether the pandemic had differentially impacted access to care based on patient demographics and postcodes.

Methods: A single-centre, cross-sectional prospective study in a busy metropolitan eye casualty between April-June 2020 recording patient demographics, distance travelled to access healthcare, diagnosis and outcome compared to the equivalent period in 2019. A further two-part survey was conducted to explore patient and clinician's perceptions around delays in attendances, views on remote consultation and severity of the condition.

Results: There was a 68% decrease in April 2020 compared to previous year's ED attendance. The diagnosis tended towards more visually significant pathology. From 2019 to 2020, there was a significant decrease in average distance travelled to the eye emergency department (eye ED). working-age adults (18-59) and white patients travelling from very far pre-pandemic contributed most to this change. 513 Patient responses (12%) out of 4433 attendances during the study period were received, 89% (456/513) of the completed surveys also had matching clinician surveys. 29% (149/513) patients felt COVID-19 stopped them from attending earlier. Clinicians thought a video consultation would have been suitable for 40% (182/456) of patients compared to only 13% (58/456) of patients preferring a video consultation.

Discussion: Although our findings were limited by low response rates, COVID-19 may have caused a delay in presentation for emergency eye care. Demographic changes and attitudes towards video consultations have implications for planning of emergency eye care in future pandemics.