---

Socio-demographic determinants of glaucoma medications compliance: A North Indian cross sectional study

---

Original Article

Author Details : Shweta Tripathi, Shakun Gupta, Varun Arora

Volume : 3, Issue : 1, Year : 2017

Article Page : 53-56

Suggest article by email

Get Permission

---

Abstract

Introduction: To investigate the level of compliance with glaucoma medications in a clinical setting of a tertiary north Indian hospital amongst both rural and urban patients and the factors associated with failed compliance. Thus to improve patient care and reducing visual deterioration and loss from glaucoma.
Method: This was a Cross sectional study done at the Glaucoma Clinic, Indira Gandhi eye hospital and research centre Lucknow, between October 2014 and March 2015. 198 patients in the clinic were administered a questionnaire by the doctor. All patients were examined to make sure they met the inclusion and exclusion criteria and then a standard questionnaire was filled for each patient by direct questioning and also form case records Impact of age, gender, place of residence, religion, education, social status, knowledge about disease, systemic illness, other medical treatment, duration of treatment and number of anti-glaucoma medication on compliance was evaluated.. Data was analyzed using SPSS version 15.0. Data has been represented as numbers and percentages. Associations were evaluated in terms of odds ratio and tested using chi-square test.
Results: Out of 198 patients enrolled - 30.8% were females, 30.8% were in the age group of 61-70 years age group, 60.1% had an urban background, 73.3% were aware that they had glaucoma and 66.7% were under treatment for more than 2 years.
Although rate of compliance varied among different age groups ranging from 0 to 34.4% yet this difference was not significant statistically (p=0.072.)
The odds of compliance were higher (OR>1) among females as compared to males, urban as compared to rural, Hindus as compared to Muslims, 12^th Class/ Graduates as compared to Uneducated/Primary educated, Higher socioeconomic strata as compared to other socioeconomic strata, those having knowledge about disease as compared to those not having knowledge about disease, having shorter duration (<2 years) of disease and those taking single AGM as compared to those taking multiple, however, this difference was significant statistically only for place of residence, education, social status, duration of treatment and number of AGMs only (p<0.05).
The commonest reason cited for non-compliance was side effects (26.3%) of anti-glaucoma medications. Other causes included cost factor (19.2%), forgetting schedule (17.7%), depletion of medication before next appointment (14.6%), inability to understand instructions (12.2%) and loss of prescription (4%).
Conclusion: Compliance rates were quite poor and were mainly associated with demographic factors, duration and number of drugs

 

How to cite : Tripathi S, Gupta S, Arora V, Socio-demographic determinants of glaucoma medications compliance: A North Indian cross sectional study. Indian J Clin Exp Ophthalmol 2017;3(1):53-56

This is an Open Access (OA) journal, and articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License, which allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as appropriate credit is given and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms.