Abstract
Purpose :
Ghana has the highest rate of glaucoma in the world, often resulting in blindness. We aimed to investigate therapy compliance and identify associated risk factors in Ghanaian glaucoma patients to define targets for functional improvement.
Methods :
A total of 468 patients visiting the eye clinic of the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital who were treated with at least one type of glaucoma medication were included in this study. Therapy compliance was determined using the Simplified Medication Adherence Questionnaire (SMAQ); potential risk factors for compliance such as socio-economic and treatment-related characteristics were assessed with structured questionnaires and analyzed using multivariate logistic regression.
Results :
195 (41.7%) patients were labeled as non-compliant to their glaucoma treatment regimen. Compliance was significantly associated with higher age (OR, 1.03; 95% CI, 1.01-1.04; P<0.01) and monthly prescription costs (OR/USD increase, 1.02; 95% CI, 1.00-1.03; P<0.05). Patients were less compliant when they were treated for more than 2 years (OR, 0.54; 95% CI, 0.33-0.91; P<0.05) or when they had difficulty with applying eye drops (OR, 0.45; 95% CI, 0.23-0.87; P<0.05). Awareness of glaucoma was poor in this population; 211 (45.1%) patients were not convinced that ceasing medication could lead to blindness.
Conclusions :
Therapy compliance in this African population of glaucoma patients was poor. Here, the most important risk factors for non-compliance were young age, low prescription costs, long duration of treatment, and difficulty with application of eye-drops.
This abstract was presented at the 2022 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Denver, CO, May 1-4, 2022, and virtually.