Project 466751

The ophthalmology clientele is vulnerable in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic because of their age and comorbidities. Specifically, elderly patients aged 65 and above with ocular diseases such as glaucoma, age-related macular degeneration, or diabetic retinopathy require regular follow-ups and commonly suffer from additional comorbidities. Further, because of the proximity between the patient and health care personnel during ophthalmological examinations, the risk of infection during visits is significant. The present pandemic has also led officials to rethink the management of patient lists and to restrict the patients to be assessed or to be operated based on the urgency of their condition in accordance with ministerial guidelines. A delay in visits might increase the risk of visual loss not only through the delay of necessary care, but also through an increase in non-adherence to treatment. Moreover, visual loss can accompany depressive symptoms and deteriorate quality of life. Therefore, it is necessary to characterize and document the ophthalmological effects as well as the effects on well-being of the restrictive measures implemented. By performing a cross-sectional survey, we hope to quantify the collateral impact of the COVID-19 beyond the direct impact of the virus by gathering information on patients health-related quality of life, vision-related quality of life, depression symptoms, anxiety, sleep quality, community integration, and experience with teleconsultations. We will examine the descriptive statistics for the participants group and check for outliers. We plan to use a linear-mixed model with the questionnaire scores as the dependent variables and demographic variables as covariates.