MONDAY, March 9, 2026 (HealthDay News) -- A Support, Educate, Empower (SEE) glaucoma coaching program improves medication adherence compared with standard written education, according to a study published online Feb. 26 in JAMA Ophthalmology.
Paula Anne Newman-Casey, M.D., from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and colleagues compared the SEE intervention to standard written education on glaucoma medication adherence in a randomized clinical trial testing intervention superiority. A total of 236 participants were enrolled from the University of Michigan and Henry Ford Health System and randomly assigned to the SEE intervention or control group (117 and 118, respectively).
The researchers found that mean self-reported adherence was 63.9 percent. Medication adherence was significantly better in the SEE intervention group than the control group (mean, 77.6 versus 58.0 percent), and more participants in the SEE group achieved 80 percent or greater adherence (54.9 versus 23.7 percent). After adjustment for baseline distress, the difference in change in glaucoma-related distress was −0.3 between the intervention and control groups.
"The SEE personalized glaucoma coaching program demonstrated clinically significant improvements in glaucoma medication adherence and reductions in glaucoma-related distress compared with the control group receiving standard written education," the authors write.
One author had a patent pending for an eye drop adherence monitoring system and method.