Encouraging adherence in adolescents with asthma using financial incentives: An RCT

BackgroundMedication adherence in adolescents remains a significant management challenge and innovative strategies are needed to improve medication adherence. Financial incentives have been used to improve outcomes for health behaviors among adults, but have not been well-studied among adolescents. The objective of this study was to test if a modest financial incentive improved medication adherence in adolescents with asthma compared with a control group. MethodsParticipants were randomized to either control (electronic medication monitoring [EMM] with App reminders/feedback for 4 months) or intervention (EMM + $1 per day for perfect medication adherence for 3 months [maximum $84] followed by 1 month of EMM only). A repeated measures mixed model, with a first order autoregressive correlation structure between errors, was used to test the null hypothesis for an interaction of treatment group and week. ResultsFifty-two participants were enrolled, and 48 completed primary analysis. Mean adherence rates declined in both groups over time, and there was no significant difference in the change in adherence rates between the groups (F-statistic = 0.72, ndf = 15, ddf = 625, p = 0.76). Adherence rates (during the 12 weeks when incentives were given) declined from 80% to 64% in the control group, and from 90% to 58% in the incentive group. There was no significant change in the slope of decline in the incentives group in the month following payment discontinuation. ConclusionA modest financial incentive did not lead to significantly different medication adherence rates in adolescents with asthma who were receiving a monitoring and reminder intervention. Further study is needed to determine viable interventions to optimize medication use in this group.

Automated summary

This study aimed to test if a modest financial incentive improved medication adherence in adolescents with asthma. The results showed that giving adolescents a financial incentive did not significantly improve medication adherence. Therefore, further research is needed to determine effective interventions to optimize medication use in this group.