Effect of health education on patients' beliefs about glaucoma and compliance.

A pretest-posttest control group experimental design (n = 100) was used to determine the effectiveness of an interactive patient education program compared with a didactic approach for persons with primary open angle glaucoma at a major specialist eye hospital in England. This study used a questionnaire with a knowledge test to explore patients' glaucoma knowledge, a series of vignettes to explore understanding of compliance and health motivation, and health locus of control scales to assess the effect of these variables. The improved posttest results (P = .000) suggest that patients benefit from education programs and that the ophthalmic nurse is an effective patient teacher. The interactive program has no statistically significant difference from the didactic presentation. Other types of interactive programs may prove to be more beneficial.