Evaluation of Drug Use with a Focus on Prostaglandin Analogues and Assessment of Medication Adherence and Quality of Life in Patients with Primary Open Angle Glaucoma: A Prospective Study at a Tertiary Care Eye Hospital.

Abstract

Background: Glaucoma, a chronic, progressive and most often asymptomatic disease 2ndleadingcause of irreversible blindness. Objectives: To study the drug use pattern in patients of Glaucoma,to evaluate the safety aspect with preservative or preservative free drugs, to evaluate quality of lifeusing the National Eye Institute Visual Function Questionnaire (NEI-VFQ25) and to evaluatemedication adherence using Glaucoma Treatment Compliance Assessment Tool (GTCAT).Materials and Method: Prospective observational follow up study was carried out for 18 months.IEC permission and Written Informed Consent from the patients were taken before hand. Patientsabove 18 years of age and of either gender and diagnosed with POAG and were on medication forpast three months were included in the study. Results: In a total of 312 patients, POAG wasprevalent in age group of 51-60 years. A total of 102(32.7%) patients were on monotherapy whilerest 210(67.3%) were prescribed combination. Most commonly used preservative wasBenzalkonium chloride. Bimatoprost caused a significantly higher mean percent reduction in IOPthan Latanoprost and Travoprost, when compared to baseline values. The Bimatoprost had asignificantly higher percentage of adverse events compared to the Latanoprost, but no significantdifference found when compared to Travoprost. Conclusion:Travoprost was most frequentlyprescribed. Drugs containing preservative BAK were reported higher incidence of ocular sideeffects when compared to preservative free eye drops. Nearly half of the patients were adherent totheir antiglaucoma medications. Keywords: Adherence, Drug use pattern, Glaucoma Treatment Compliance Assessment Tool(GTCAT), NEI-VFQ-25, PG analogues, Quality of life