Increasing medication adherence among adults with atrial fibrillation
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Increasing medication adherence among adults with atrial fibrillation: an mHealth digital intervention feasibility RCT study.
IRAS ID
279087
Contact name
Alice Pearsons
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Edinburgh Napier University
ISRCTN Number
ISRCTN10135302
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 11 months, 2 days
Research summary
Atrial Fibrillation (AF) affects over 1.4 million people in the UK. A major public health issue, AF requires frequent hospital admissions and increase risk of ischaemic stroke five-fold. Of greatest concern, AF-related stroke are more likely to be fatal or severely disabling compared to other types of stroke.
Oral anticoagulation medication reduces stroke risk in AF by two-thirds. Despite demonstrated effectiveness of anticoagulation, adherence among AF patients is sub-optimal. In Scotland only 35% of people with AF still take anticoagulants after 18 months, significantly lower than for other cardiovascular medications. Missing just 1-2 anticoagulant doses increases stroke risk. People living with AF are frequently managing multiple medications and interventions to improve medication adherence need to encourage self-management.
There is growing evidence that mobile health (mHealth) interventions are effective at improving both intentional and non-intentional adherence to medications. Mobile applications (apps) offer the opportunity to provide remote healthcare support and can deliver personalised self-management techniques such as educational content, tracking functions and medication reminders. Systematic review of commercially available AF self-management apps failed to identify current apps of sufficient standard to help support individuals with AF. We have developed a new mHealth app, which has been co-designed with patients.
This study will undertake a feasibility randomised controlled trial of the newly developed AF app among people living with AF in the community. We will identify whether it is possible to recruit patients from general practice and cardiology outpatient clinics, check that participants can complete outcome measures and identify challenges to be addressed in the implementation of a full trial. It will also provide an opportunity to ensure the app is intuitive and requires little instruction to operate. Data and ideas developed from the feasibility study will inform a larger randomised controlled trial.
REC name
South East Scotland REC 01
REC reference
21/SS/0001
Date of REC Opinion
21 Jan 2021
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion