Pharmacist-led intervention to improve topical treatment use in acne
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Developing and testing the feasibility of a community pharmacist-led intervention to improve patient adherence to prescribed topical acne therapies.
IRAS ID
195715
Contact name
Derek Stewart
Contact email
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 6 months, 25 days
Research summary
Acne is one of the most common skin problems, affecting 80% of teenagers (aged 13 to 18 years) at some point and every year accounts for 3.5 million GP consultations. Acne can lead to pronounced and lasting psychological and physical effects. Mild to moderate acne is normally managed with topical therapies yet there is evidence that patient adherence to treatment is poor. One recent large scale adherence study involving over 3,000 patients, identified that overall the rate of adherence was 50% and reduced to 40% in those prescribed only topical treatments.
In this study we aim to produce an intervention that can be delivered by pharmacists to help improve adherence to topical therapy. Prior to developing an intervention to change behaviour, there is a need to systematically determine and describe all factors potentially impacting adherence. The Theoretical Domains Framework (TDF), is a single integrative framework combining theories of behavioural change, to identify domains and key constructs that determine behaviour and provide potential prompts for behaviour-change.
The TDF enables the identification of key constructs that determine adherence and inform the development of an intervention for behaviour change. Such an intervention is likely to be more successful than those which aim solely to improve knowledge and may lead to sustained change. In Phase 1, we propose to use the TDF to determine behavioural-determinants related to adherence in the population of young people prescribed topical acne treatments. In Phase 2, the findings will aid the participant development of an intervention to be delivered by community pharmacists. Phase 3 will explore the feasibility and acceptability of the intervention from a number of key perspectives. The potential benefit of the study is that it will establish a theory based intervention that can be delivered by pharmacists to maximise adherence in patients prescribed topical therapies for mild-to-moderate acne.REC name
West of Scotland REC 3
REC reference
16/WS/0050
Date of REC Opinion
8 Mar 2016
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion