Department of Ophthalmology, James Cook University Hospital, Cleveland, UK.
Eye (Lond). 2011 Apr;25(4):466-9. doi: 10.1038/eye.2011.5. Epub 2011 Feb 4.
Patient compliance is essential to ensure efficacious treatment. The ease of topical drop delivery is of paramount importance. At least 50% of patients report difficulty in self-administration of topical ocular medicine. The two most frequently reported causes of difficulty include aiming the bottle and squeezing the bottle.
The aims of this study were to identify (I) the force required to deliver a single drop from a bottle (the squeezability factor), (II) are some bottle designs easier to use than others? (III) Do compliance aids reduce the finger strength required to deliver an eye drop?
We measured the force required to deliver a single drop from a variety of commonly used ophthalmic preparations. Force was slowly applied at the midpoint along the bottle until a drop fell from the tip. Compliance aids were also tested with this technique.
We report a wide variation in the force requirements needed to use topical medicines. Three of the four compliance aids tested increased force requirements but may have had other beneficial effects by altering the grip on the medicine bottle.
This study highlights the large variability in force required to deliver a single drop using the ophthalmic preparations and compliance aids tested. We feel our results will be of interest and relevant to prescribing physicians and manufactures alike.
患者的依从性对于确保治疗效果至关重要。局部滴眼剂的使用便利性至关重要。至少有 50%的患者报告在自行使用局部眼部药物时存在困难。最常报告的两个困难原因包括瞄准瓶子和挤压瓶子。
本研究旨在确定（I）从瓶子中滴出一滴所需的力（可挤压性因素），（II）是否有些瓶子设计比其他瓶子更容易使用？（III）使用辅助工具是否可以减少滴眼时所需的手指力量？
我们测量了从各种常用眼科制剂中滴出一滴所需的力。力沿着瓶子的中点缓慢施加，直到一滴从尖端落下。我们还使用该技术测试了合规辅助工具。
我们报告了使用局部药物所需的力有很大的差异。我们测试的四种合规辅助工具中的三种增加了所需的力，但可能通过改变对药瓶的握持方式产生了其他有益的效果。
本研究强调了使用我们测试的眼科制剂和合规辅助工具滴出一滴所需的力的很大变异性。我们认为我们的结果将对处方医生和制造商都具有兴趣和相关性。
