Patients’ electronic health (eHealth) technology use is likely to be challenged by age-related declines in eHealth literacy or ability to incorporate eHealth technology use into health care. In this regard, the promotion of SMRA use among middle-aged to older patients with chronic conditions could be a feasible and cost-effective way to support their medication adherence. For example, 74% of US adults aged between 50 and 64 years report having smartphones, which indicates that an SMRA could be utilized with little to no cost by the majority of these adults. In the real-world setting, an SMRA is available to smartphone owners at little to no cost, and there is a high rate of smartphone ownership within the middle-aged to older population.
#MEDISAFE APP TAKE AS NEEDED SETTING TRIAL#
In an experimental setting, a randomized control trial revealed that the patients with a 3-month SMRA use reported higher levels of medication adherence compared with those without app use. Smartphone medication reminder apps (SMRAs) that enable users to (1) record prescribed medication information (eg, medication type and dosing schedule) in the app, (2) receive reminders (eg, alarm and message) from the app at the time to take medications, and (3) monitor medication adherence levels via the app, show promise as a way to enhance adherence for middle-aged to older patients with chronic conditions. Complex medication schedules for chronic condition management (ie, polypharmacy) might lead these patients to struggle with remembering medication schedules and, thereby, lead them to poorly adhere to medications. Poor medication adherence among middle-aged to older patients with chronic conditions often stems from forgetting.
Medication adherence is critical to reducing negative health-related outcomes such as increased hospitalization, morbidity, and mortality. Focus groups revealed the following participants’ perceptions of SMRA use in the real-world setting that the intervention training session would need to emphasize in targeting perceived usefulness and positive subjective norm: (1) the participants would find an SMRA to be useful if they thought the app could help address specific struggles in medication adherence in their lives and (2) the participants think that their family members (or health care providers) might view positively the participants’ SMRA use in primary care settings (or during routine medical checkups).Īpproximately 87.5 million middle-aged to older adults in the United States report having one or more chronic conditions, and 68% report not taking or filling medications as prescribed.
However, the level of perceived usefulness (U=4.50, Z=−1.99, P=.05) and the level of positive subjective norm ( P=.25) were lower in the training group (median=6.50, median=4.29) than in the nontraining group (median=6.92, median=4.50). Mann-Whitney U tests revealed that the level of perceived ease of use ( P=.13) and the level of intention to use an SMRA ( P=.33) were higher in the training group (median=7.00, median=6.67, respectively) than in the nontraining group (median=6.25, median=5.83).
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