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Tablet application improves medication adherence in patients with DES
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Patients with drug-eluting stents who used a computer tablet application were 10% more likely to correctly follow their medication regimen, according to findings published in Frontiers in Public Health.
The My Interventional Drug-Eluting Stent Education App (MyIDEA), developed by University of Illinois at Chicago researchers, uses a patient-centered narrative to help patients better understand the importance of medication adherence and see if there was increased patient knowledge of dual antiplatelet therapy and medication possession ratio vs. standard treatment.
“Nonadherence is often due to miscommunication between medical staff and patients regarding the purpose of the medication or the specific duration of the medication,” Andrew D. Boyd, MD, assistant professor of biomedical and health information sciences in the UIC College of Applied Health Sciences, said in a press release. “We aimed to address this gap by creating a patient-centered education application.”
In a pilot project, researchers enrolled 24 patients aged 50 years or older who had received a DES. The randomized, two-arm study divided patients into a control arm (n = 11) and an interventional arm (n = 13). Patients in both cohorts were required to complete psychological and knowledge questionnaires.
Medication possession ratio was calculated at 3 months for all patients scheduled to return for a second and third visit.
Compared with the control group, the interventional arm showed an average increase in medication possession ratio of 10%. Mean medication possession ratio was 0.95 in the interventional group vs. 0.85 in the control group (P = .27); the study was not designed for statistical significance.
Patients in the control group showed poor adherence vs. the interventional arm (< 80%).
According to the psychological data collected in the study, patients in the control group were typically more anxious than patients in the interventional group (Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, 8.8 vs. 4.2; P = .02).
The average time spent using the MyIDEA app was 21 minutes for patients in the interventional group.
Boyd said in the release that the results of the study could enable new and effective education programs to increase a patient’s health and treatment knowledge.
“We observed that people spent a larger percentage of time on patient stories, focusing on problem-solving issues and critically thinking about solutions,” Boyd said in the release. “This kind of patient-centered health information, used with an education application, is proving to be useful and progressive toward increasing drug adherence for patients.” – by Dave Quaile
Disclosure: The study was funded by the Department of Biomedical and Health Information Sciences and the Center of Excellence for End-of-Life Transition Research. The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.
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