Estimating patients adherence to prescribed medication for nursing research: A pilot study

Aims: To pilot test recruitment and data collection methods for studying adherence to short-term antibiotic treatment regimes for use in nurse intervention studies. Methods: This cross-sectional descriptive study evaluated the utility of 3 measures of medication adherence: self-reported behaviour, electronic monitoring, and urine culture. The sample consisted of 30 subjects of Chinese ethnic origin attending a single accident emergency department in a local general hospital. Cluster analysis was used in order to compare the methods of estimating adherence. Results: The protocols developed proved to be effective for the collection of adherence data. Cluster analysis identified 3 separate clusters in the sample: relatively high adherers whose attitude to adherence was a good indicator of their behaviour; subjects who admitted adherence errors, but whose actual adherence was the highest monitored; and subjects with relatively high self-reported but low monitored adherence. Data for this sample show that treatment may be totally ineffective in at least 30% of subjects. Conclusions: This pilot study confirmed the feasibility of these data collection processes in the Chinese context and their suitability for application in further study of the effects of a brief structured nursing intervention.