ABSTRACT
Objective:
Determining the epidemiological factors and analyzing the main etiological causes of the patients treated with red-eye complaint at the urgency and emergency sector of the ophthalmological hospital in the state of Minas Gerais.
Methods:
A prevalence observational analytical study was performed with a non-probabilistic sample formed by patients who visited the emergency room of the Fundação Hilton Rocha Hospital from january to april 2014 (n=1140). The following variables investigated were: gender, age, race, profession, education, income, means of transportation, time elapsed between the first symptom and the first visit, day of the week, low visual acuity symptom, diagnosis and treatment.
Results:
Out of the sample of 390 patients with red eye complaint, 57.4 % (n= 224) were female and the age ranged from 3 to 97, with an average of 43.7 years of age. The majority of patients, 87.6% (n= 341) sought the service up to 14 days after the onset of symptoms, only 75 individuals (19.4 %) had low visual acuity. The lower economic classes (classes D and E) are prevalent among patients. The main cause of red eye complain was conjunctivitis and infectious blepharoconjunctivitis 32.6% (n= 127).
Conclusion:
Infectious conjunctivitis was the morbidity with the highest incidence. The Fundação Hilton Rocha plays an important role in providing urgent ophthalmological care in the public health network in Minas Gerais. It is important to identify the most frequent causes of medical service for ocular diseases and expand the epidemiological and social studies in order to improve people’s access to ophthalmic emergencies and give us subsidies for guidance campaigns, focused mainly on the lower social classes.
Keywords:
Conjunctivitis/diagnosis; Conjunctivitis/epidemiology; Conjunctivitis/etiology; Eye diseases/epidemiology; Emergency service, hospital
