Glaucoma Knowledge and Disease Severity in a Veteran Population: The Medication Adherence in Glaucoma to Improve Care (MAGIC) Study.

Purpose: To assess the relationship between glaucoma knowledge and disease severity.

Design: Substudy of a randomized controlled trial at a single Veterans Affairs (VA) eye clinic.

Participants: Veterans with medically treated open-angle glaucoma who self-reported poor medication adherence.

Methods: Participants completed a glaucoma knowledge assessment using the 10-question National Eye Health Education Program (NEHEP) Eye-Q Test on glaucoma knowledge. Disease severity was determined using visual field criteria. Multiple linear regression was used to assess the association of NEHEP Eye-Q score and disease severity, adjusting for age, number of glaucoma medications, race, sex, and VA Care Assessment Needs (CAN) score.

Main Outcome Measures: In this cross-sectional, preintervention analysis, the main outcome was glaucoma knowledge as measured by the NEHEP Eye-Q Test.

Results: Among the 200 study participants, glaucoma severity was mild in 53 (27%), moderate in 56 (28%), severe in 74 (37%), and indeterminant in 17 (9%). The NEHEP Eye-Q scores were low across all severity levels. Scored out of 10, the mean (standard deviation) NEHEP Eye-Q scores were 6.06 (1.57) for mild, 6.21 (1.47) for moderate, 6.28 (1.82) for severe, and 5.88 (1.93) for indeterminate stage. There was no evidence of a significant association between NEHEP scores and disease severity categories (P = 0.78). A regression model did not identify a significant estimated association between NEHEP Eye-Q scores and disease severity after adjusting for age, CAN risk score, number of glaucoma medications, race, and sex.

Conclusions: There was no difference in level of glaucoma knowledge based on disease severity. Education-based interventions may benefit patients across all glaucoma stages.

Financial Disclosure(s): The author(s) have no proprietary or commercial interest in any materials discussed in this article.