Abstract
Purpose: To analyze eye drop instillation by glaucoma patients using video-recording.Methods: Glaucoma patients who had applied eye drops to both eyes for more than 1 month were enrolled. Patients who did not self-instill eye drops, those with best-corrected visual acuities of 0.01 or less, and patients requiring glaucoma surgery, were excluded. The patients were requested to instill their eye drops as usual, and this was video-recorded. Patients completed questionnaires exploring their usual instillation methods and the videos were viewed. The correctness of instillation (10 steps) was evaluated. We used the survey and imaging data to explore whether each step was performed correctly, and whether the patients were conscious of their instillation behaviors. We explored whether the survey responses and the video data were consistent.Results: Fifty-four patients were enrolled. Of the 10 steps, washing hands before instillation (9.3%), blocking the tear duct (9.3%), gently shaking the bottle (11.1%), and wiping away excessive eye drops with tissue (11.1%) were the steps that were most commonly poorly performed (as revealed by the videos). The mismatches between the survey and actual performances were greatest in the following order: Wiping away excessive eye drops with tissue (66.7%), delivering a single drop accurately into the eye (59.3%), and closing the eye to allow of absorption (57.4%).Conclusions: Great proportion of glaucoma patients instill eye drops incorrectly revealed by video recording. Careful education on how to instill eye drops is required. It may be difficult to detect problems regarding eye drop instillation only by asking questions.
Publisher
Korean Ophthalmological Society