Abstract
Purpose :
In patients with primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG), psychosocial risk factors play an important role in morbidity and mortality. Psychosocial distress screening and referral programs can help to reduce distress; however, they are not currently implemented in glaucoma clinics. Since little is known about the preferences of POAG patients related to distress screening and referral programs, we conducted an acceptability and feasibility study to inform the development of future programs to treat distress in glaucoma.
Methods :
We performed a prospective cross-sectional study using POAG patients from the Duke Eye Center from September 2022 to October 2022. Patients were contacted by email two weeks prior to a glaucoma appointment and asked to complete surveys to measure acceptability to distress screening and referral. The acceptability questions are given in Table 1. Distress was measured using the distress thermometer a scale from 0 (no distress) to 10 (high distress). Demographics were self-reported and included race (White, Black/African American, Asian), sex (female vs. male), marital status (married vs. single), and age. Clinical measures included standard automated perimetry (SAP) mean deviation (MD, dB), visual acuity (log MAR) and intraocular pressure (mmHg). Summary statistics are presented along with odds ratios (OR) and p-values from ordinal logistic regression models for each acceptability question.
Results :
Our cohort consisted of 47 patients with an average distress thermometer of 3.5 (2.7) and SAP MD of -5.5 (7.6); more summaries are in Table 2. Of the patients, 63% agreed that distress screening would improve their healthcare experience if the results were discussed within the context of their glaucoma (question 3); 66% of patients were interested in a referral to treat their glaucoma related distress (question 5). Only 13% of patients felt that screening would not improve their healthcare experience (question 1). Patients with higher distress were more likely to agree that screening has benefits (OR: 1.42, p-value = 0.005).
Conclusions :
Our study indicates that POAG patients are open to a distress screening and referral program in glaucoma clinics. These preliminary results are promising and motivate the need to collect more data related to the preferences of POAG patients toward the identification and treatment of distress related to glaucoma.
This abstract was presented at the 2023 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in New Orleans, LA, April 23-27, 2023.