Study on the use of a smart pillbox to improve treatment compliance

Objective: To assess the usefulness of the Practidose (R) individualised dispensing and dosing pillbox system in improving treatment compliance (TC). Design: Open-labelled, randomised, clinical trial. Setting: Cordoba province from April to September 2005. Participants and context: A total of 220 patients >= 70 years diagnosed with ineffective management of treatment regime, polymedicated with no cognitive deterioration or limited mobility. Enrolment was carried out by block random assignment. Each district Linking nurse was assigned 10 interviews, 5 from the intervention group and 5 from a control group. Intervention: To give a smart pillbox with instructions. Measurements and primary outcomes: The response variable was the TC measured using the Morisky-Green questionnaire at the beginning and at 2 months. The independent variables were: age, sex, education level, number of people living in the home and mean age, diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, COPD, number of medications, number of daily and weekly doses self-medication, and interest in the patient information leaflet. A descriptive analysis and a multiple logistic regression were performed on the data. A total of 182 patients finished the study. The TC improved by 6.74% in the intervention group and by 2.15% in the control group. To took after the medications and suffer from COPD lead to better TC, and was less so when there was interest in the patient information leaflet. Conclusions: The improvement in treatment compliance with the Practidose Pillbox was not statistically significant, although a positive tendency was observed. (C) 2007 Elsevier Espana, S.L. All rights reserved.