Use of Telepresence Robots in Glaucoma Patient Education

Telepresence robots (TR) present the versatility to effectively provide remote educational sessions for patients affected by glaucoma to improve disease knowledge. Given COVID-19's effect on clinical practice, TR can maintain social distancing when educating patients.

TR are devices that allow remote users to have a mobile presence anywhere. We compared the effect of an education session given by an in-person educator versus a TR on glaucoma knowledge and identified factors that impact patient education.

Eighty-five glaucoma patients were split into control, human, and TR groups. We measured glaucoma knowledge scores (KS) using the National Eye Institute's Eye-Q Test. Human and TR groups had the education session with a human or TR followed by the questionnaire. The control group was administered the questionnaire without an education session. Treatment regimen recall (RR) >90% was considered a success. We used linear regression and binary logistic regression to determine variables that affect KS and RR, respectively.

Mean age was 58.3±2.8 years. 49% were female. Mean KS were 5.8±0.7 in the control group (n=31), 7.9±0.5 in the TR group (n=26), and 8.4±0.5 in the human group (n=28). Control participants had a lower mean KS than the human or TR groups (P<0.001). Having the education session (2.5, P<0.001), education greater than high school (0.8, P=0.016), and diabetes (-0.7, P=0.037) affected KS. Having diabetes (odds ratio=0.14, P=0.014) negatively affected RR. Having the education session may affect RR (odds ratio=5.47, P=0.07), warranting additional studies.

Education sessions with a human and TR improved patients' glaucoma KS. TRs may serve as an alternative to in-person education sessions and allow educators to safely and effectively educate patients remotely to adhere to COVID-19 social distancing guidelines.