I clean my contact lenses in the bathwith the bath water!' An extreme example perhaps, but given that contact lens non-compliance has been estimated to be as high as 80 per cent, we are sure that you can all recall at least one contact lens aftercare 'horror story'.
As eye care practitioners we will see our contact lens patients once, maybe twice a year. In these appointments, there may only be a few minutes for us to provide some well-intentioned advice and to convey a message or two about the importance of good hygiene and compliance. So is there a way of communicating such advice to patients in a way that increases the likelihood they will comply? The answer is yes and an example of this strategy's effectiveness comes from a rather unlikely source - tupperware parties.
Mutual friends
Social science research into the principle of 'liking' shows that people have a tendency to comply more with the requests of people they like. This fact has not gone unnoticed by the Tupperware organisation who arrange for their products to be demonstrated in the homes of friends and neighbours - people who are more likely to like each other. In fact research into the Tupperware approach has found that the strength of the bond and the amount of liking that Tupperware party-goers have for the host are twice as likely to affect their behaviour as their liking for the product itself.
Clearly we are not suggesting that you follow Tupperware's lead by organising eyesight and contact lens checks in the homes of your patients - and invite a few of their friends along for good measure. However, we are suggesting that this 'liking' effect can be employed by eye care practitioners in an alternative and often very effective way.
Two of the key factors that influence liking between two people are:
- How many similarities they share with each other and
- The giving of praise and compliments.
Let's deal with each in turn. Perhaps we have all experienced a situation where, on meeting someone for the first time, we quickly get the feeling that we have known them for years. The likelihood is that we have connected with this person by discovering something we share in common. We have children of the same age, studied at the same hospital or university, maybe we live in the same area of town. Notice how more engaged and attentive we become with such people.
In a similar vein, eye care practitioners who spend a few moments looking for genuine similarities that they share with their patients can often find their subsequent advice and recommendations being paid more attention. Sometimes this approach requires no more than a moment or two reviewing some information from a patient's notes or asking one or two friendly questions. It is amazing how finding out that you both share a common hobby or favourite holiday destination quickly turns the consultation from a traditionally 'you' and 'them' environment into a more cooperative 'we' one.
Another key factor concerns compliments. Studies in medical settings have shown that patients are more likely to follow the advice of a healthcare professional if that advice is directly preceded by a compliment of their existing behaviour. For example, it may become apparent during a consultation that a patient cleans their case correctly but over-wears their contact lenses. While advising this patient that reducing their contact lens wearing time would be wise thing to do, this same recommendation could be more persuasive if it followed a compliment praising the patient about their current case cleaning regime. In other words, the message is the same, but the delivery is different. But we guess you already knew this. After all we know that readers of this column tend to be the brightest and most intelligent of all practitioners. ?
? Dr Helen Court is a lecturer at Cardiff University's School of Optometry and Vision Sciences and can be contacted at www.cardiff.ac.uk/optom/ Steve Martin is a bestselling co-author of Yes! Secrets from the Science of Persuasion and can be contacted at www.influenceatwork.co.uk