Eyecare practitioners (ECPs) now have the chance to provide improved health outcomes for their patients due to the development of novel medicines that may slow the progression of myopia. Despite increasing demands for myopia management to become the new standard of care, the adoption of these novel therapies by practitioners is still relatively low. Myopia control in children to prevent its advancement is a more complicated procedure than traditional correction of vision. It requires the help of improved education and technology. There is also a significant issue over the need for extra chair time and continuity of treatment to effectively meet individual patients’ needs. Adopting myopia management as a new therapeutic focus in clinical practice creates unique communication issues for eye care professionals (ECPs). During follow-up visits, treatment effectiveness, patient compliance, and retention must be discussed. It is in addition to the in-depth first dialogue necessary to increase uptake.
Unique communication challenges
Parents significantly impact their children’s lifestyle choices, which allows them to play an essential part in the process. The success of any approach that depends on adopting novel therapies for children will be contingent on the fact that parents are aware of the disease and are willing to acknowledge that the suggested interventions are a required treatment choice. In addition, while parents wish to protect their children’s eyes from the ocular damage that might occur with myopia, they are unaware of how they can accomplish it. Therefore, practitioners need to make sure that parents understand the idea of myopia management and its potential advantages for children at risk of progressing with myopia. When developing a program for the treatment of myopia, ECPs will confront several essential communication issues, including the following:
Increasing long-term compliance while still maintaining
As a result of the fact that eye development and advancement of myopia are likely to occur during therapy, patient retention is an essential concern that needs addressing. Patients could not continue with costly treatments if the advantages cannot be proved and explained during continued follow-up visits. It might result in lost revenue for the healthcare provider. These therapies must be administered for an indeterminate time based on each patient’s age, gender, ethnicity and the specific degree of risk involved. Maintaining the patient’s compliance with the therapy and guaranteeing that the treatment will not end too soon depend on effective and continuing communication between the patient and the healthcare provider.
From the point of view of the ECP, improving involvement with active myopia depends on a combination of two elements. Devise a strategy for discussing myopia with the patients’ parents. The second step is to determine how to streamline and condense the discussion in such a way that (a) patients buy into the idea and agree to undergo the treatment that has been recommended, and (b) valuable chair time is not squandered on protracted and ultimately pointless discussions.
Myopia management may and should begin with a discussion about the fact that you can do something if a child’s myopia is developing. It is the most general definition of the term. Simple pieces of guidance, such as asking parents how much time their child spends outside, are helpful places to begin. The majority of parents are pretty responsive when presented with the straightforward message that there is something that you can do to prevent their child’s eyesight from deteriorating further.
Convincing a parent that they should subscribe to the much more significant expenditures and daily needs of a new myopia control regimen is a totally different and perhaps more challenging dialogue.