The use of a smartphone application to influence the Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice (KAP) of patients towards a better glaucoma medication compliance

Glaucoma is a chronic eye disease that requires consistent and timely eye drop medication management. However, suboptimal treatment outcomes of glaucoma patients were attributed to poor medication compliance. To address this problem, the study proposed to assess the effectiveness of influencing the Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice (KAP) of the patients with the use of a smartphone application (app) to improve the medication compliance of glaucoma patients. The smartphone app feature includes a ‘reminder’ function that reminds the study participants to apply eye drop medication on time, while also provides information and articles about glaucoma to enhance the knowledge and understanding of the study participants about glaucoma. A total of 181 participants were recruited and three questionnaire tools were used to assess the KAP of the patients towards medication compliance across three time points (baseline, 3-month, and 6-month) after using the proposed smartphone app. Compared to the control, the proposed intervention had an effect on improving the glaucoma knowledge, but showed no significant effect on the confidence and adherence of glaucoma medication of the participants. The findings suggested that integrating digital technology with educational strategies can have potential in enhancing participant compliance with glaucoma medication, ultimately improving their health outcomes.