Patient-reported behavior and problems related to topical glaucoma medication

Abstract

Introduction Compliance to medicamentous therapy in glaucoma patients if of great importance since it has great effect on clinical outcome.

Methods The descriptive cross-sectional study included patients (303) referred for diagnostic procedures and follow up examinations at the glaucoma outpatient clinic of the University Clinical Center of Serbia University Eye Hospital, in the period from January 2023 to January 2024. The study included glaucoma patients older than 18 years, who have been taking therapy for more than a month. Patients were asked questions about the use of topical antiglaucoma medications. Statistical analysis was performed in SPSS Statistics for Windows, Version 18.0 using t-test. A p-value of less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant.

Results 303 glaucoma patients were included in the study, of which 120 (39.6%) were men, and 183 (60.4%) women. The average age was 67.4 ± 12.6 years (19–92). The average duration of therapy was 7.1 ± 5.8 years (one month to 30 years). The largest number of patients, 177 of them (58.4%) stated that they regularly use the prescribed therapy.

Conclusion Our study showed a high degree of reported compliance of the tested patients, which is significant for the correct choice of therapeutic modalities in the future, which would slow down the progression of this incurable disease.

Keywords: compliance; topical antiglaucoma therapy; drop instillation technique