Improvement in Medication Adherence Using TV Programmes as Reminders

Abstract

According to WHO, only 50% of patients adhere to chronic therapy. The problem of non-adherence has persisted over decades. Over 197 million Indian households have TV sets, and on average Indians spend 3 hours, 44 minutes watching television. A TV programme is used as intervention by patients to improve medication adherence rates. The objective of the research is to find the effect of TV programmes as a form of reminder in improving medication adherence. With the help of a structured questionnaire, the information about medication adherence behaviour was obtained from patients suffering from different types of diseases in the state of Sikkim, India. It has been found that when patients use TV programmes as a form of reminder, the odds of missing the medication consciously reduces by 45.9%. At a personal level, the probability that a person will not miss the time of medication is 42.3% higher compared to when it is not used, and if the total population is considered, 15.6% fewer people would not be missing the medication at all when the reminder is used.