Eye drop technique and patient-reported problems in a real-world population of eye drop users
| Autor: | Inge Van Tongelen, Lucas Van Bortel, Jean Paul Remon, Christophe Delaey, Koen Boussery, Els Mehuys, Thierry Christiaens |
|---|---|
| Jazyk: | angličtina |
| Rok vydání: | 2019 |
| Předmět: |
Adolescent
genetic structures medicine.medical_treatment Glaucoma Self Administration Primary care Article 03 medical and health sciences 0302 clinical medicine Patient reported problems Surveys and Questionnaires Correspondence medicine Coming out Humans Patient Reported Outcome Measures Aged Aged 80 and over Community pharmacies business.industry Drop (liquid) Eye drop Middle Aged medicine.disease eye diseases Ophthalmology medicine.anatomical_structure Cross-Sectional Studies 030221 ophthalmology & optometry Optometry Eyelid sense organs Ophthalmic Solutions business 030217 neurology & neurosurgery |
| Zdroj: | Eye (Lond) |
| Popis: | OBJECTIVE: To assess eye drop technique and patient-reported problems with eye drop instillation in a primary care sample of eye drop users. METHODS: Cross-sectional observational study in 136 community pharmacies in Belgium. Patient inclusion criteria were being age ≥ 18 years and using eye drops for ≥ 1 month (to ensure that patients were already familiar with eye drop instillation). Participants demonstrated their eye drop technique and completed a self-administered questionnaire. RESULTS: Participants (n = 678) had a mean age of 68.9 ± 12.4 years. During the demonstration, almost everyone (98.0%) successfully instilled at least one drop in the eye, although 14% required multiple attempts to achieve this. Only 3% of the sample exhibited perfect drop technique, meaning that they performed correctly all the steps. Most common deviations were touching the bottle to the eye or eyelid (40.7% of patients), and failing to close the eye (67.8%) and perform nasolacrimal occlusion for at least 1 min (94.7%) after drop instillation. Importantly, we found that 20% of ophthalmic suspensions were not shaken before use. Forty percent of patients reported ≥ 1 problem with eye drop instillation. Most common problems were difficulties with getting a drop in the eye (18.3% of patients), too many drops coming out of the bottle (14.6%), and difficulty squeezing the bottle (12.2%). About half of the sample recalled having had education in eye drop instillation technique. CONCLUSION: This study showed suboptimal eye drop technique in real-world clinical practice. A proactive role of community pharmacists in detecting and resolving these problems could be helpful. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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