outpatient and hospitalization in cataract surgery: iranian cataract surgery survey

background: to determine the prevalence of outpatient and hospitalization for cataract surgery in iran. methods: a random cluster sampling was done in a cross-sectional study on cataract surgeries performed in treatment centers of ophthalmology in iran between 2000 and 2005. one week of each season was selected randomly and all cataract surgery files of the center were studied. this study reported the prevalence of outpatient surgery and length of hospital stay in all surgeries in iran between 2000 and 2005. results: among 13,409 studied files on cataract surgery, mean hospitalization time was 0.79±0.82 days, 31.42% of surgeries were done on an outpatient basis, and 62.32% were hospitalized for one night. about 4.45% and 1.81% were hospitalized for two nights and more, respectively. hospitalization time after surgery showed no significant difference with sex. also, there was no significant difference between mean age of inpatients and outpatients (p=0.08). the most common method used for surgeries was phaco (52.33%) and the least was lensectomy (11.38%). conclusions: a major proportion of cataract surgeries required hospitalization. due to the costs of hospitalization in this surgery, the phaco method can play an important role in reducing the costs of treatment.