To Study the Association between Weather and Frequency of Cataract Surgeries Performed Over Three Years in four different hospitals of Lahore, Punjab

Abstract

Aim: To study the association between weather and frequency of cataract surgeries performed over the year in four different hospitals of Lahore, Punjab. Place and duration of study: The data of 8375 patients who underwent cataract surgeries over last three years 2017, 2018 and 2019 from four different hospitals, Medicare Eye hospital, Jinnah Hospital, Akhtar Saeed Trust Hospital and Lahore General Hospital, was collected. Study design: It was a cross sectional survey. Non-probability conventional sample was used. The data was analyzed by SPSS-20 and presented in forms of bar charts and line graphs. Methods: Total 8375 patients were selected from previous records for our study from four different centers. The hospitals were Akhtar Saeed trust hospital, Jinnah hospital,Lahore general hospital and Lahore Medicare Eye center. Lahore General hospital (LGH) and Jinnah Hospital are from government sector. Akhtar Saeed Hospital is a trust hospital and Lahore Medicare is a private Hospital.All patients with unilateral or bilateral cataract with age above 40 years were included where as patients under 40 years, cataract planned under general anesthesia and patients who had cataract associated with retinal attachment were excluded. Results: Total patients included in our study were 8375.There were 4439 (53%) men and 3936 (47%) women. Out of these 3721 (44.43%) from Jinnah hospital, 2498 (29.83%) were from Lahore General Hospital, 1676 (20.01%) from Medicare and 480 (5.73%) from trust Hospital. In Jinnah hospital, the highest number of cataract surgeries were observed in months of March 500 (13.44%), October 375 (10.08%) and February 341 (9.16%) and months with a smaller number of cataract surgeries were July 201 (5.40%), June 185 (4.9%) and August 170(4.57%).In LGH three months showing maximum number of patients were October313(12.53%), November 285(11.41%) and April 281(11.25%) and minimal in July 158(6.33%), August 128 (5.12%) and June 99(3.96%). Conclusion: It was clear from results of our study that higher number of cases were seen in months of March, April and October and the lowest number of surgeries were observed in months of June, July and August on an average. A definite seasonal variation was observed in number of cataract surgeries performed over the year, in different eye hospitals of Lahore (Punjab) Pakistan. Keywords: Cataract, Surgery, Seasonal variation