Uptake, Persistence, and Performance of Weekly Home Monitoring of Visual Field in a Large Cohort of Patients With Glaucoma

Purpose: This study examines the short-term uptake, compliance, and performance of a tablet device used for home monitoring of visual field (VF-Home) by glaucoma patients.

Design: Single-center, observational, longitudinal, compliance study.

Methods: Participants who were glaucoma suspects or had stable glaucoma in at least one eye were recruited during a regular clinic review. Baseline in-clinic visual field (VF) was recorded with the Humphrey Field Analyser (HFA, SITA standard) and repeated at 6 months. Participants were tasked with performing 6 VF examinations from home, at weekly intervals, using a loaned iPad tablet. Uptake was defined as returning at least 1 test from home. Reliability and global indices from VF-Home were compared to in-clinic outcomes. Data are shown as either mean ± [standard deviation] or median [quartile 1-3 range], and group comparisons were achieved with bootstrap.

Results: We recruited 186 eyes of 101 participants. VF-Home uptake was excellent, with 88% of participants successfully completing ≥1 home examination and 69% completing all 6 examinations. The median duration between tests was 7.0 [7.0-8.0] days. Barriers to uptake and compliance involved information technology (IT) logistical reasons, lack of motivation, or competing life demands. VF-Home gave greater fixation loss but a similar level of False Positives (FP) as the HFA. A high correlation was found for the mean defect between in-clinic and at-home outcomes (R = 0.85).

Conclusions: VF-Home can return a high level of short-term compliance and results comparable to those found by in-clinic testing. IT logistical reasons and lack of motivation are barriers to uptake and compliance.