Phillips, Leigh Alison. Using habit theory and commonsense self‐regulation theory to improve medication adherence assessment. Retrieved from https://doi.org/doi:10.7282/T31J98TD
DescriptionPatient non-adherence to medication is a pervasive problem that contributes to poor patient health and high healthcare costs. Better measures of adherence, based on health psychological theory, could improve our understanding of the factors involved in non-adherence and improve the efficacy and effectiveness of interventions to ameliorate non-adherence. The current study was designed to: (1) propose a theoretical framework of long-term behavior development that integrates habit theory and the commonsense self-regulation model (CS-SRM); (2) provide an initial test of hypotheses derived from this framework; and (3) test the validity of a measure designed from the framework to predict patients’ adherence relative to that of the current ‘best-practice’ adherence measures. Seventy-four hypertensive patients participated in a baseline interview in which they were asked to describe their daily medication routines (medication habit strength) and report their level of adherence, among other theoretical constructs. Patients then used an electronic monitoring pill bottle for approximately one month. Compared to existing measures, patients’ medication habit-strength better predicted the percentage of days they took their medication on time and equally predicted the percentage of prescribed doses they took. The results suggest that researchers and providers can better predict patient adherence by asking patients about their habits than by asking directly how adherent they are. Future research will include patients with newly prescribed medications as well as patients with other types of chronic conditions in order to better assess the theoretical framework itself.