Table 5. Outpatient visits to Aravind Eye Care System vision centresa during and before COVID-19 pandemic waves, by diagnosis, Pondicherry and Tamil Nadu, India, 2019–2021.
| Diagnosis for worse eye at presentation | No. outpatient visits (%) |
P valueb | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pandemic periodc (n = 281 612)e |
Comparison periodd (n = 404 515)e |
||
| Cataract | 60 927 (21.64) | 79 718 (19.71) | < 0.0001 |
| Corneal infection | 952 (0.34) | 446 (0.11) | < 0.0001 |
| Glaucoma | 2 241 (0.80) | 4 037 (1.00) | < 0.0001 |
| Ocular trauma | 10 343 (3.67) | 12 069 (2.98) | < 0.0001 |
| Lens-induced glaucoma | 71 (0.03) | 5 (< 0.01) | < 0.0001 |
| Neuro-ophthalmic condition | 283 (0.10) | 372 (0.09) | 0.26 |
| Refractive error | 39 963 (14.19) | 60 824 (15.04) | < 0.0001 |
| Retinal detachment | 91 (0.03) | 114 (0.03) | 0.33 |
| Retinal disease | 1 914 (0.68) | 2 363 (0.58) | < 0.0001 |
| Uveal disease | 1 954 (0.69) | 1 951 (0.48) | < 0.0001 |
| Other diagnosis | 162 873 (57.84) | 242 616 (59.98) | < 0.0001 |
COVID-19: coronavirus disease 2019.
a Vision centres are primary care centres.
b P values were derived using the two-sample proportion test.
c The pandemic period comprised the first two waves of the pandemic from 24 March 2020 to 31 October 2020 and from 1 April 2021 to 30 June 2021, respectively.
d The corresponding comparison periods were from 24 March 2019 to 31 October 2019 and from 1 April 2019 to 30 June 2019, respectively.
e The total numbers of outpatient visits differ from the corresponding totals for vision centres in Table 3 because the diagnosis was not documented in some case records.