Praise your patients

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.