State of the pediatric ophthalmology service of the Russian Federation in 2014–2022

The article presents the results of the analysis of the dynamics of the main performance indicators of the pediatric ophthalmology service from 2014 to 2022. The number of ophthalmology offices (from 6.262 in 2014 to 6.037 in 2022) and children’s ophthalmology beds (from 2.,558 to 2.094) decreased, and the number of ophthalmologists decreased by 681 individuals, 7.3% of the total, in the Russian Federation. The provision of ophthalmologists and ophthalmology beds per 10,000 individuals in 2022 is presented for individual federal districts (FDs) of the Russian Federation. To date, North Caucasus FD and Southern FD received the lowest provision with ophthalmologists per 10,000 individuals (0.69 and 0.68, respectively), whereas Northwestern FD and Far Eastern FD received the highest provision (1.03 and 0.89, respectively). The number of visits to ophthalmologists by children, including for preventive purposes, decreased, and the efficiency of preventive examinations increased, which led to an increase in the proportion of diseases detected during routine examinations by nearly three times. The paper presents the detection rate of ophthalmological diseases during preventive examinations in children by FDs in 2022. On average, the coverage of regular medical check-ups of children with ophthalmological diseases in the Russian Federation has increased (from 25.5% in 2014 to 42% in 2023), and the values of this indicator in individual FDs in 2022 are indicated. The highest and lowest coverage of regular medical check-ups were noted in the Siberian FD (54.0%) and Far Eastern FD (33%), respectively. The indicators of overall and primary morbidity of ophthalmological diseases in general and individual nosological forms, blindness, low vision, and disability were analyzed. The dynamics of surgical activity indicators in the FDs of the Russian Federation are presented.