Health Belief interventions to improve medication taking behaviour
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Evaluating the use of a theory-based intervention to improve medication-taking behaviours: A Longitudinal study in patients with Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension
IRAS ID
211692
Contact name
Tim Palmer
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Bradford
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 9 months, 30 days
Research summary
Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension (PAH) is a rare, incurable disease of the heart and lungs, causing significant shortness of breath and tiredness to patients. Patients living with PAH face the burden of having to take complex medication with significant limiting side effects. It is known from other studies that medicines are not always taken by patients as instructed. This is termed non-adherence. It is thought that at least half of patients with chronic diseases do not adhere to their medication instructions. Failure to correctly take medicines limits the achieved benefits. In addition the doctor often needs to escalate therapies to control symptoms, putting the patient at unnecessary side effects. The cost of wasted and ineffective therapies due to non-adherence is very significant. No literature exists on the repercussions of poor adherence in PAH.
Other studies using simple interventions have resulted in limited success. Recent studies have sought to uncover patients inner beliefs about medicines in order to more accurately understand an individuals circumstances and barriers to taking medicines. Interventions derived from this have been shown to improve medication taking.
My aim is to interview patients on health beliefs and medication-taking behaviours, so that I may produce a personalised action plan to improve their ability to take medicines. The effectiveness of the interventions will be assessed as a change in patients self-reported adherence to medicines. At the end of the study I will re-interview the patients to assess changes in beliefs and their views on each component of the intervention. To my knowledge this is the first study of its type in this complex life-limiting condition. The overall study is summarised in the attached appendices.REC name
HSC REC A
REC reference
17/NI/0038
Date of REC Opinion
8 May 2017
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion