Managing in early COVID-19: The Nigerian optometry experience

Abstract

This study was designed to assess the knowledge, attitude, and practices of Nigerian optometrists and optometry students with regard to the COVID-19 pandemic, while also assessing its impact of their daily personal and professional routines. The Google Forms suite was used to design an online struc- tured survey/questionnaire. This was sent to Nigerian optometrists and optometry students along with a message soliciting their voluntary participation. This survey took place between 10th April and 15th May 2020. The responses received were electronically transmitted to the authors and populated via Google suite software. Descriptive statistics and inferences were then derived from these data. A total of 399 valid responses were logged during this study. Of these, 183 (45.4%) respondents were optometry students from the eight optometry education departments in Nigeria. Optometric doctors made up 216 of the respondents. 86% of optometrists reported having cases of COVID-19 in their state. No optometrists reported suffering from the COVID-19 disease while one (0.5%) student had been infected with COVID-19. Twelve percent of student respondents felt educational facilities were adequate to cater for post COVID- 19 resumption, while 21.5% of students felt that the ongoing academic session should be restarted. The COVID-19 Pandemic has impacted greatly on service delivery among Nigerian optometrists and optometry education. Educational institutions must also adjust to current realities in order to be able to provide safe and adequate training when the academic section resumes or restarts.