Health Literacy and Adherence to Glaucoma Therapy Original Reearch Article

Purpoe To decribe the health literacy of ubject with open angle glaucoma and to invetigate the hypothei that low health literacy i aociated with poor glaucoma medication adherence. Deign Cro-ectional patient urvey and concomitant chart review. Method One hundred and ninety-even ubject with open angle glaucoma participated in a urvey which included baic demographic information uch a age, gender, ethnicity, and level of education completed, and a tet of heath literacy, the Rapid Aement of Adult Literacy in Medicine. Information wa collected regarding viual field tet and precribed medication. The ubject’ pharmacie were contacted to acertain the number of refill requeted over the previou ix month. Reult Although 146 ubject (74%) reported completing high chool, only 94 ubject (48.0%) read at or above a ninth grade level; 23 (11.7%) read at a level of third grade or below. The mean number of refill requeted by a ubject in the preceding ix month wa not predicted by race (P = .27,) gender (P = .31), age (P = .92), mean deviation of the viual field (P = .36), or level of education (P = .58). There wa a poitive relationhip between health literacy and the number of refill obtained (P = .003). Concluion Many patient with open angle glaucoma may have poor health literacy. The ubject in our tudy with low literacy were le adherent with their glaucoma medication than thoe with a higher level of literacy. Intervention pecifically targeting patient with low literacy may improve medication adherence.