Purpose To understand the factors that influence glaucoma treatment adherence with medication taking, prescription refills, and appointment keeping in order to develop an intervention for a specific population. Patients and Methods In-depth interviews were conducted with 80 individuals diagnosed with open angle glaucoma, glaucoma suspect, or ocular hypertension. Additional eligibility requirements were that all participants were: between the ages of 18–80; White or African American; spoke and understood English; and were taking daily doses of topical glaucoma treatments for at least the past year. Cross-tabulations and Chi-square tests were conducted to compare adherent and non-adherent individuals, classified as such based on self-report and medical chart/pharmacy data. Results Compared to adherent participants, non-adherent participants were less likely to: believe their eye doctors spent sufficient time with them; ask their eye doctor if they had any questions; know of benefits to taking their glaucoma medication regularly; and have someone help them take their glaucoma medications or drive them to eye appointments. Conversely, compared to adherent individuals, non-adherent participants were more likely to have difficulty remembering to take their medications and to believe their glaucoma would affect their eye sight in the future. Conclusions Non-adherent glaucoma patients struggle with a variety of issues related to consistent use of glaucoma medicine and routine eye care. Interventions are needed to address these modifiable factors related to glaucoma treatment adherence.

Minimal intervention was effective in promoting smoke-free homes in low income households and offers a potentially scalable model for protecting children and adult nonsmokers from secondhand smoke exposure in their homes.

Background-Verbal self-report is the method most often used to assess sunscreen use, but the data may be confounded by recall error and social desirability. Sunscreen swabbing is a non-invasive procedure to objectively assess the presence of sunscreen on the skin. This study examined the agreement between verbal reports of sunscreen use from survey and diary measures and objectively measured sunscreen use.

BackgroundSimilarly to secondhand smoke (SHS), thirdhand smoke (THS) beliefs may be correlated with smoking behaviors and smokefree policies in the home. Thus, there is a need to develop and validate measures to assess beliefs about THS.MethodsA list of 19 items related to THS were generated by an expert panel and tested in a pilot study. Based on results from an exploratory factor analysis, two factors emerged: THS persistence in the environment and THS impact on health. The scale was reduced to nine items, which showed no differential item functioning by smoking status or smoking ban status in the home. The nine items and the two factor structure were tested in a validation sample from a smoke-free homes intervention that included THS educational materials.ResultsThe 9-item scale showed excellent internal consistency. Confirmatory factor analysis indicated good model fit for the two factor solution in a low-income population. Tests of construct validity indicated differences due to exposure to the smoke-free homes intervention, by smoking status, whether participants own or rent their home, and smoking ban status in the home.ConclusionsThe BATHS scale offers researchers a valid and reliable tool to assess THS beliefs.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12971-017-0112-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Very few community-based intervention studies have examined how to effectively increase the adoption of smoke-free homes. A pilot study was conducted to test the feasibility, acceptability, and short-term outcomes of a brief, four-component intervention for promoting smoke-free home policies among low-income households. We recruited forty participants (20 smokers and 20 nonsmokers) to receive the intervention at two-week intervals. The design was a pretest-posttest with follow-up at two weeks after intervention. The primary outcome measure was self-reported presence of a total home smoking ban. At follow-up, 78% of participants reported having tried to establish a smoke-free rule in their home, with significantly more nonsmokers attempting a smoke-free home than smokers (P = .03). These attempts led to increased smoking restrictions, that is, going from no ban to a partial or total ban, or from a partial to a total ban, in 43% of the homes. At follow-up, 33% of the participants reported having made their home totally smoke-free. Additionally, smokers reported smoking fewer cigarettes per day. Results suggest that the intervention is promising and warrants a rigorous efficacy trial.