Published on 26/04/12 at 08:00am
Patients with long-term diseases benefit from having text message reminders to take their medication.
This is according to a new review, published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Information Association.
It said that electronic reminders such as text messages help patients with chronic conditions take their medication regularly - but warned it only had data for the short-term. Longer-term studies would need to be conducted to review its efficacy over greater periods of time, the authors said.
A key issue for people living with long-term conditions is their ability to stick to their drug schedule, and numerous attempts have been made to come up with an effective solution.
One of the most common reasons patients give for not taking their medicines is that they simply forgot, say the authors.
The review looked at 13 studies, involving patients with HIV infection, high blood pressure, asthma, glaucoma, and those taking the contraceptive pill.
Four studies reported on text messages (SMS); seven on audiovisual reminders provided by hand held devices; and two on pager services.
In all, nine of the studies showed that electronic reminders boosted patients’ ability to stick to their drug dosing schedules. Text messages in particular, but also audiovisual prompts, seemed to get the best results.
Ten of the studies monitored the impact of these reminders on patients for less than six months, and only one of the three studies monitoring patients for longer than this reported a significant impact on adherence rates.
The review’s authors said: “Patients who are adherent at first can become non-adherent over time,” adding that: “automated reminders can become a routine, resulting in habituation.”
Nevertheless, they conclude their findings indicate that electronic reminders do seem to be helpful for patients with long-term conditions in the short-term, and that this approach is both easy for healthcare professionals and patients to adopt.
“Reminders can be used especially to modify the behaviour of [...] patients who are willing to take their medication but who forget it or are inaccurate,” they write.
And they may also provide a solution for those who deliberately don’t take their prescribed medication, “by stressing the importance of the intake in the message,” they suggest.
They also say that advances in technology may offer the possibility of longer-term benefits too.
“The increasing opportunities of new technologies make it possible to tailor reminding both in timing (only when needed) and in content (tailored messages). In this way, long-term improvements in medication adherence may be achieved,” they conclude.
Ben Adams is the reporter for Pharmafocus and InPharm.com and manages the DigiBlog site. He can be contacted via: email or Twitter.
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