Background

Patients’ behaviour contributes to their treatment success, and doctors rely on patients to take their prescribed medication. However, many patients fail to take their prescribed medication enough to receive its full benefits. While sometimes patients do not take their medications for intentional reasons, e.g., to avoid adverse side-effects, the most common reason is unintentional: they simply forget.

The most common causes of non-adherence are forgetting and habits (Osterberg & Blaschke., 2012; Phillips et al., 2016; Vrijen et al., 2014). The proposed research aims to help people diagnosed with type 2 diabetes overcome their forgetfulness be developing a medication adherence habit. This research stands to benefit many patients. In the United Kingdom, over 3.5 million people have been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, and about 1/3 do not take their medications frequently enough. Put another way, over 1-million people in the United Kingdom may not be taking their medication often enough to avoid costly complications, like hypertension, that ironically require them to take additional medications.

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Figure 1: Poster for use in Diabetes grant