Development and Testing of a Multi-Component Intervention to Improve Medication Literacy in Glaucoma Patients.

Objective: To develop a medication literacy intervention program for glaucoma and test its effects on medication literacy, medication self-efficacy and medication adherence.

Methods: The intervention was constructed according to the Information-Motivation-Behavioral skills Model and the Health Belief Model. Preliminary protocols were revised through expert group meetings and pre-experiments to form a formal intervention plan. Subsequently, 66 patients with glaucoma were enrolled and randomly assigned to the control and intervention groups. The control group was received with routine follow-up and education for glaucoma patients, while the intervention group was given an 8-weeks medication literacy intervention for glaucoma patients. Before the implementation of the intervention and at the end of the 8th week of the intervention, the Chinese Version of the Medication Literacy Scale, the Short Version of the Glaucoma Medication Self-Efficacy Questionnaire and the Chinese version of the Morisky Medication Adherence Scale-8 were used to evaluate the medication literacy level, medication self-efficacy and medication adherence of glaucoma patients in the intervention group and the control group.

Results: We developed an 8-weeks multi-component medication literacy intervention for glaucoma. Before the start of the intervention, there were no statistically significant differences in the scores of medication literacy, medication self-efficacy and medication adherence between the control group and the intervention group. After the intervention, the medication literacy, medication self-efficacy, and medication adherence of the intervention patients were significantly better than those of the control group (P<0.05).

Conclusion: The 8-weeks multi-component intervention for glaucoma patients can improve their medication literacy, medication self-efficacy, and medication adherence.