Patient leaflet consultation
Context
The College hosted a myopia management round table in 2018, where we committed to producing a leaflet to educate patients and their parents’ information on myopia management. The leaflet would be based on the College’s consensus statement and guidance for optometrists. The leaflet’s primary aim would be an authoritative and independent source of information for the public who were interested in finding out more about myopia management options. It would also act as an aid to members who practice myopia management to ensure enough information was available to potential wearers and their parents, supporting the consent process.
Member consultation
The leaflet was drafted so that it was carefully balanced and impartial to satisfy the needs of all members, both enthusiasts and those cautious to myopia management interventions. Based on our guidance and consensus statements we drafted a leaflet in our house style in collaboration with the Research and Policy teams, with revisions by our Patient and Public Reference Group (PPRG) and a Plain English editor. We put this draft to our members for a consultation.
Conclusions
In total, 49 members responded to the consultation. 87% of respondents said they would use the leaflet in practice.
We asked members to score the leaflet out of five, five being high:
There was a theme amongst the free-text responses that the proposed leaflet was too enthusiastic about myopia management. As a result, we made the following changes:
- We added the word ‘slightly’ to emphasis the reduced risk of sight loss was small.
- We reduced the number of times we used the term ‘sight loss’ as there was feedback that this could provoke unnecessary fear.
- We added a section on the option of no treatment to aid the consent process.
- We added a section to reassure parents of the legitimacy of using traditional methods of sight correction until more evidence is available.
Plain English has now approved the revised leaflet. The first edition is in publication and is available for members to order. It will next be reviewed in autumn 2020.