The following is the summary of “Eye Drop Adherence With an Eye Drop Bottle Cap Monitor”, published in the May 2023 issue of Glaucoma by Kinast, et al.
Adherence to glaucoma eye drops was tested in 50 patients using a bottle cap monitor with audible and visible alarms. The alerts’ potential to increase commitment could not be tested because baseline adherence rates needed to be lowered. To evaluate the efficacy of a monitor placed on the cap of an eye drop bottle in tracking patient compliance. When it’s time to take your eye drops, the Devers Drop Device (D3, Universal Adherence LLC) can send you a text message, an image, or a sound to remind you to take them. Adherence was initially measured over 25 days in Stage 1 with 50 patients who used an eye drop every night. Participants with less than 90% baseline adherence were considered for Stage 2. Stage 2 randomly assigned participants to 25 days of no reminders or automated D3 warnings for their nightly eye drops.
Compliance was determined as the number of times a subject took their drops within 3 hours of their planned dosage time. Participants answered 3 questions about their experience with the device and willingness to pay for it. All 50 participants had the D3 monitor attached to the top of their eye drop bottles to record adherence data during the trial. The overall Stage 1 adherence rate was 90 ± 18% (range: 32-100%). Forty participants, or 80%, had an adherence rate of 90% or above. Stage 1 adherence rates were too high for meaningful Stage 2 reminder testing.
Subjects agreed on “the device always stayed attached to the bottle cap” (99%) and “I was able to use the device to take the drops” (96%) with a 98% agreement rate. Adherence devices would get an average of $61±83 from patients ($0-$400). The D3 has an adherence measurement for eye drops. Participants were enthusiastic about the eye drop bottle cap monitor and were willing to pay for it. Studies involving research subjects screened for poor adherence may help further assess the benefit of electronic adherence monitoring with and without electronic reminders, as glaucoma patients had excellent observation when being monitored.
