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[Have patients who go to the emergency department changed? Evolutive study for the years 1997 and 2005].

OBJECTIVE
To study the change in number and profile of patients who came to the Emergency Department of a level 2 hospital with ophthalmic emergencies in the years 1997 and 2005.


METHOD
Two groups of randomly selected patients who came to the Emergency Service on the same day in the years 1997 and 2005 were studied. The study focused on the following variables: number of visits per day, gender, age, time period, number of examinations done, diagnoses and type of treatment prescribed. Comparison of proportions was carried out with a confidence interval study and Chi Square Test.


RESULTS
The statistically significant changes (p<0.05) were as follows: increase in number of patients seen; increase in the diagnosis of corneal foreign body (25%); decrease in the diagnosis of conjunctivitis (12%); increase in cases in which only one examination was done (19%); increase in frequency of visits between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. and decrease between 9 a.m. and 12 p.m; reduced attendance of those of female gender (13%) and increase in the male gender (13%); increase in patients between the age of 31 and 40 years (9%); decrease in the use of treatments such as occlusion and epithelializing ointment (7% and 6% respectively); increase in use of analgesics (5%), artificial tears (5%) and NSAIDs (8%); increase in referral of patients to their primary care physician (17%) and decrease in ophthalmology check ups (34%).


CONCLUSIONS
The number of ophthalmological emergencies has increased in the last eight years, especially in young male patients, with work-related disease, who came in the evening. Treatments such as the use of artificial tears have increased, and patients are sent to the primary care physician more often.