Since dry eye often needs long-term and regular treatment with eye drops, compliance is important to achieve favourable therapeutic outcomes. Difficulty in squeezing eye drop containers has been reported as one of the major barriers for eye drop compliance1,2.
Effective instillation depends on sufficient grip and pinch strength, which are often diminished in the elderly and those with arthritis. Newer eye drop delivery systems offer benefits such as preservative-free storage without risking contamination but they differ in design from traditional bottles that work by squeezing, potentially increasing difficulty of use. This novel study examined and compared self-reported challenges of elderly participants, with or without arthritis, in using these modern bottle designs.
We assessed relatively new bottle designs with the inclusion of a traditional squeezable bottle for comparison (Fig 1).
