title: How 'Drug Aware' are our Glaucoma Patients?
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Poor knowledge, attitude and self-care practices (KAP) as regards medication compliance is a major concern in the management of glaucoma. This study aims to evaluate the knowledge, attitude regarding eyedrop instillation and self-care practices pertaining to eyedrops in diagnosed glaucoma patients.
  
  
  METHODS
  In this cross-sectional, open-ended questionnaire-based study, 101 consecutive glaucoma patients on medication were recruited from an urban tertiary care hospital of North India. A self-designed 10-point KAP questionnaire that addressed patient-, medication-, environment- and physicians related factors was used. For each desirable answer, the participant gives a score of 1 was given and for each undesirable answer a score of '0' was given for each question. The total scores for each domain were calculated separately along with the total score. The association between the individual domain scores, the total score and various sociodemographic parameters were compared using unpaired t-test. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) test was used to compare the means, where the exposure variable had more than two categories.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Out of 101 participants, 98% knew the reason why they were instilling the medicine. Only 61.4% subjects knew that the eyedrops should be stored in cool and dry place. Nearly 30% participants believed that two eyedrops could be instilled back to back. Half of the participants (55.4%) did not consider missing a dose of medicine to be significant. Majority (89.1%) of the participants asked the doctor about the drug dosage and timings and 71.3% of them did not use the eyedrops beyond 40 days after opening the vial. 37.6% participants believed that the medicine could be discontinued without asking the doctor, once the symptoms are relieved. Eighty percent patients checked the vial for correct drug name and expiry date before buying. 57.4% of the participants washed their hands before instilling the eyedrops. Only 23.8% patients asked their doctor for alternate medication name, in case they do not get the primary medication. There were no statistically significant differences in the mean domain and total scores between males and females and between urban and rural patients. There were no statistically significant differences in knowledge (p = 0.059) and attitude (p = 0.809) scores in people with different educational qualification. But education had a statistically significant relation with the practice scores (p = 0.004) and total scores (p = 0.047).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  There exists marked variation in the reported practices, even in the very basic prerequisites of instilling eye-drops like washing of hands, checking the expiry date before the usage of eyedrops. The findings in our study suggest a need to better educate our patients by providing them detailed information about eyedrop and its administration. This would help to reduce patients' frustration, improve compliance and increase the efficacy of anti-glaucoma therapy. How to cite this article: Mohindroo C, Ichhpujani P, Kumar S. How 'Drug Aware' are our Glaucoma Patients? J Curr Glaucoma Pract 2015;9(2):33-37.
authors.affiliation: Final Year Student, Department of Ophthalmology, Glaucoma Service, Government Medical College and Hospital, Chandigarh, India.
authors.forename: Chirayu
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Mohindroo
authors.affiliation: Assistant Professor, Department of Ophthalmology, Glaucoma Service, Government Medical College and Hospital, Chandigarh, India.
authors.forename: Parul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Ichhpujani
authors.affiliation: Associate Professor, Department of Ophthalmology, Glaucoma Service, Government Medical College and Hospital, Chandigarh, India.
authors.forename: Suresh
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kumar
keywords: Eyedrops; Glaucoma; IOP.