A computerised prescribing decision support system to improve patient adherence with prescribing. A randomised controlled trial

Abstract

Background: Medication adherence is often suboptimal and this leads to poorer health outcomes.

Participants: 179 adult patients taking three or more, long term medications in one academic general practice in Brisbane, Queensland.

Design: Unblinded, factorial, randomised controlled trial of computer generated consumer product information, computer generated medication timetable, both, or usual care.

Main outcome measures: We derived adherence to medication by measuring the relative prescription rate for six groups of medications extracted by the Health Insurance Commission. We also measured patients' knowledge of, and satisfaction with, medications, and general practitioners' attitudes to the decision support system.

Results: There was no effect on medication adherence. Although GPs were supportive of the system, neither patients' self reported knowledge of medications, nor satisfaction with care, was increased by the intervention.

Conclusion: Simply providing patients with medication timetables and computer generated consumer product information does not improve drug adherence in primary care.