Research Project Description:
Medication adherence is defined as the extent that the medication taken reflects prescribed intention. Recently the World Health Organization (WHO) published a guide advising to develop novel strategies in order to improve medication adherence.
The objective of this project is to design, develop and promote a web platform and smartphone application (‘tool’) aiming to a) help patients using to adhere to their medication (patient interface) and b) help clinicians prescribing medication to more accurately monitor their patients’ adherence (clinician interface).
The tool will aim to meet two specific challenges: a) the negative impact from non-adherence to both for the individual (i.e. poor health outcomes, risk of death) and the society (i.e. to the national health system due to higher healthcare costs) by encouraging patients to receive their medication accurately and on time; b) the clinicians’ weakness of identifying their patients’ medication nonadherence by enabling clinicians to track their patients’ adherence. The project will use a co-creation approach with patients and clinicians providing feedback to the tool development and collecting evidence of its usability and feasibility through a pilot randomized controlled trial. More specifically, a scoping review and a series of interviews with stakeholders and focus groups with patients and clinicians will be performed to provide constant feedback on three different iterations of the tool. Then, the project advisory panel and medical students will test the tool. This evidence will evaluate the tool’s face and content validity. Finally, clinicians and their patients will be purposively recruited in a pilot trial aiming to assess the tool’s impact on adherence, satisfaction with care and quality of life. The project’s findings can inform on the tool’s usability and guide its future implementation in usual care. In the long term this can reduce costs for the health system by minimising hospitalisations as well as improve patients’ well-being.
Principal Investigator(s) and Coordinating Institution(s):
- University of Cyprus, Cyprus
Researchers at University of Nicosia Medical School:
- Prof Alexia Papageorgiou
UNIC Participating Institution:
- University of Nicosia Research Foundation
Other Participating Institution(s):
- Cyprus (3AeHealth Ltd)
Research Project Acronym: SOCIALINO
Funding Agency: Research and Innovation Foundation (RIF)
Funding Programme: Social Innovation
Total Research Project Budget: €99,900
Research Project Status: Completed
Start and End Dates: 01 April 2019 – 31 December 2021
Funding Programme or Research Project Logo:
Related Links: https://www.stay-on-track.3ahealth.com/
Related Publications:
- Konstantinou P., Kasinopoulos O., Karashali C., Georgiou G., Panayides A., Papageorgiou A., Wozniak G., Kassianos A.P. & Karekla M. (2021) A Scoping Review of Methods Used to Assess Medication Adherence in Patients with Chronic Conditions. Annals of Behavioural Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1093/abm/kaab080.
- Konstantinou P., Kassianos P.A., Georgiou G., Panayides A., Papageorgiou A., Almas I., Wozniak G. & Karekla M. (2020) Barriers, facilitators, and interventions for medication adherence across chronic conditions with the highest non-adherence rates: a scoping review with recommendations for intervention development. Translational Behavioral Medicine, 10(6): 1390–1398 doi.org/10.1093/tbm/ibaa118