Barriers and facilitators of medicines adherence in children
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Exploratory study on the barriers and facilitators of medicines adherence in a UK children’s hospital and in a Saudi Arabia children’s hospital.
IRAS ID
247581
Contact name
Sharon Conroy
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Nottingham
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
N/A, N/A
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 6 months, 0 days
Research summary
Not taking medicines as prescribed is a common problem particularly in children. It can result in treatment failure and sometimes adverse drug reactions. The reasons why this happens are not well understood and there has been relatively little research into this particularly in the UK. Before interventions to help children to take their medicines can be developed we need to understand what reduces their adherence and what helps to improve it. We wish to identify and explore the barriers and facilitators of medicines adherence in children taking long-term medication for any chronic disease. The study will be an interview study in the children’s wards and outpatient departments in the King Fahad Medical City, Saudi Arabia and the Derbyshire Children’s Hospital, UK. Participants will be recruited from the outpatient waiting areas and the inpatient wards.
The patient (or parent on behalf of children too young to do so) will be asked to answer questions in two questionnaires which aim to explore barriers and facilitators to adherence for the child and their family. Any questions that they do not understand will be clarified by the researcher. One of the questions will ask them to estimate how well they have taken their medicines in the last month on a scale of 0 to 100%. We will also ask for consent to view the patient’s electronic Summary Care Record which will allow us to see how often they have renewed their GP prescriptions for each medicine. This will allow us to estimate the child's medicines adherence and to compare this to their own estimate. Our pilot studies have shown that the questionnaires take participants 10 to 20 minutes to complete.
REC name
London - Stanmore Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
19/LO/1250
Date of REC Opinion
30 Jul 2019
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion