Impact of social distancing policy on pediatric emergency ophthalmic severity during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic.

Background: We investigated the impact of social distancing policies (SDPs) on ophthalmic severity in children who underwent emergency ophthalmic referrals during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic period.

Methods: We reviewed all children with ophthalmic referrals in a single academic hospital emergency department during the period from February 2017 to December 2019 (prepandemic) or February 2020 to December 2022 (pandemic). Baseline features, diagnosis-based severity, and outcomes were compared between the two periods. The Government Response Stringency Index (GRSI), which ranges from 0 to 100, was used as a surrogate for the intensity of SDPs during the pandemic. Poisson regression was used to quantify the association of the GRSI with the severity.

Results: Among 1074 children with ophthalmic referrals, 437 (40.7%) visited during the pandemic. This was 31.4% lower than that during the prepandemic period. In numbers, pandemic-related declines were more modest in high severity than in medium-to-low severity (35.1% vs. 55.0%), and for injury than for illness (28.5% vs. 36.1%). In percentages, high severity increased from 63.3% to 71.3% (p = 0.016). The hospitalization rate increased from 1.7% to 3.9% (p = 0.029). For every 10-point increase in GRSI, there was a 20.0% decrease in high severity (95% confidence interval, 5%-30%).

Conclusions: This study shows an inverse association of SDPs with ophthalmic severity and an increase in severe cases along with consistent flow of injury cases, amid the overall decline in eye-related visits to the emergency department during the pandemic period.