Is smartphone app associated with medication adherence, blood pressure control?

Bottom Line: Among patients with poorly controlled high blood pressure, those who used a smartphone application had a small improvement in self-reported medication adherence but no change in systolic blood pressure.

Why The Research Is Interesting: Medication nonadherence is a major factor that contributes to poorly controlled high blood pressure. Smartphone apps are touted as promising strategies to help people manage their blood pressure.

Who and When: 411 participants with poorly controlled high blood pressure and taking 1 to 3 antihypertensive medications were enrolled in a randomized clinical trial after recruitment through an online platform

What (Interventions and Outcomes):  209 participants took part in the intervention and were instructed to download the Medisafe app, which includes reminder alerts, adherence reports and optional peer support; 202 participants were in a control group for comparison and did not receive any intervention; primary outcomes were change from baseline to 12 weeks in self-reported medication adherence and change in systolic blood pressure

How (Study Design): This was a randomized clinical trial (RCT). RCTs allow for the strongest inferences to be made about the true effect of an intervention. However, not all RCT results can be replicated in real-world settings because patient characteristics or other variables may differ from those studied in the RCT.

Study Limitations: Recruitment was online; study results may not be generalizable to other people with poorly controlled high blood pressure; the intervention lasted 12 weeks and the study cannot determine long-term outcomes of the smartphone app; the study tested one app and the results may not be generalizable to other apps

More information:
jamanetwork.com/journals/jamai … ainternmed.2018.0447

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