Barriers and facilitators to Capecitabine Adherence
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Understanding barriers and facilitators to adherence to oral capecitabine to help design an intervention to improve adherence
IRAS ID
348210
Contact name
Gaby Judah
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Imperial College London
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 4 months, 1 days
Research summary
Capecitabine is an anticancer drug given in tablet form, used in the UK for a variety of cancers, including breast, colon, rectal, stomach and pancreatic cancer. Having anticancer treatment in tablet form allow patients to have treatment at home, is less invasive and reduces the number of hospital trips needed during treatment, compared to receiving anticancer drugs through a vein using a needle or a tube. However, this can mean a lot of responsibility on patients, and studies show that there is a significant proportion of patients who do not take capecitabine as prescribed. Not taking medication as prescribed, or ‘nonadherence’ can take different forms and patients may not be taking capecitabine according to clinical recommendations for many reasons.
We will run two sub-studies - an observational sub-study in an NHS hospital outpatient oncology department setting and an interview sub-study - to help us get a better picture of the things that make it harder or easier for patients to take their capecitabine treatment in the way that it was prescribed. The sub-studies will include patients taking capecitabine, or with previous experience of taking capecitabine, and healthcare professionals involved in the care of patients on capecitabine treatment. These sub-studies are important as once we understand the difficulties patients face with their capecitabine treatment, we will be able to design a way of helping patients improve their ability to take capecitabine according to clinical recommendations (or ‘adherence’). After analysing the results from these sub-studies along with a review of the published research so far, we will run co-design workshops where we will work together with a group of participants to get their thoughts and ideas on the best way to support patients to take capecitabine treatment in the way that it was prescribed.
REC name
Yorkshire & The Humber - Leeds West Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
25/YH/0099
Date of REC Opinion
10 Jun 2025
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion