The profile of patients attending to the general emergency department with ocular complaints within the last year: is it a true ocular emergency?

Consistent with the literature, 1.5% of patients presenting to the general emergency department had eye complaints.However, 27% of those referred to the ophthalmological clinic did not have an urgent eye condition. This is partly due to the high proportion of patients presenting to the emergency department with ocular complaints and the lack of knowledge of ophthalmological diseases by emergency physicians, leading to unnecessary referrals to the ophthalmology clinic, resulting in a loss of the workforce and reduced time allocated to patients with true ocular emergencies.