Glaucoma label study Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Glaucoma label study - Article Example However, a small number of glaucoma patients with reduced visual function might benefit from large print labels on their topical eye drops. Glaucoma is an important global public health concern with the proportion of patients burdened with this sight threatening disease ever increasing due to the rapidly ageing population. In Australia, glaucoma causes 3% visual impairment and 14% blindness in patients aged 40 and over. Since the majority of glaucoma patients are managed initially with medical therapy, compliance is critical for decreasing disease progression. Despite the availability of effective pharmacologic therapies, non-compliance in patients with glaucoma has been reported to vary from 24 to 59%. Many obstacles affect treatment compliance including regimen factors (refill, cost, complexity, change, side effects), patient factors (knowledge, skill, memory, motivation, health beliefs, comorbidities), provider factors (dissatisfaction, communication) and situational or environmental factors (lack of support, major life events, travel, competing activities, change in routine). Quality of written instructions such as amount of information and readability is important in ensuring medication compliance especially in visually impaired, elderly patients where written treatment information often supplements verbal instruction. In some cases, especially when a patient has a care giver, this information becomes the main source reference for correct interpretation of their medication regime. The aim of our study was to assess whether readability and comprehension of medication label size was a contributing factor to treatment compliance in glaucoma patients. Eighty subjects with diagnosed glaucoma were recruited from the public out-patient clinic of a tertiary eye hospital in Melbourne, Australia. The duration of study was 6 weeks (27.03.07 to