The influence of disease severity on quality of eye-drop administration in patients with glaucoma or ocular hypertension

Compliance in glaucoma patients is different from that in patients with most other systemic diseases for which the primary intervention involves either the oral administration of a pill or intravenous administration of a medication. Most individuals know how to take a pill; by contrast, the proper administration of eye-drops may be difficult for many patients. Numerous studies have focused on medication persistency and compliance,1 but few have examined whether the eye-drops that are administered actually get into the eye.2 3 Therefore, we investigated the quality of the topical eye-drop instillation technique in patients diagnosed as having open-angle glaucoma (OAG) or ocular hypertension (OHT) and assessed the relation between the ability to administer eye-drops properly and disease severity. A total of 138 patients with OAG (n = 87) or OHT (n = 51) treated with at least one topical ocular hypotensive medication for a minimum of 1 month were …