In patients with diabetes, hypertension or hyperlipidemia with poor medication adherence and suboptimal disease control, a pharmacist-based intervention may improve medication adherence, according to results of the STIC2IT trial presented Nov. 14 at AHA 2017 in Anaheim, CA.

Niteesh Kumar Choudhry, MD, PhD, et al., looked at 4,076 patients with a median age of 60 years at 14 primary care practices who were randomized to usual care or tele-pharmacy intervention – consisting of a brief pharmacist-delivered behavioral interviewing telephone consultation, text messaging, mailed reports providing patients with updated biometric and adherence information, and feedback from the pharmacists to patients’ primary care physicians.

Results showed that after one year, the intervention improved medication adherence by 4.7 percent, but did not improve the secondary outcome of disease control.

The researchers explain that future interventions may need to "be more intensive while still pragmatic; focus on a more impactable patient population; and simultaneously address adherence and other barriers to optimal disease control."

They add that moving forward, "future work should focus on strategies to increase the uptake of similar interventions and on improving the understanding of which patient groups derive the most clinical benefit from adherence improvement efforts."

Keywords: AHA17, AHA Annual Scientific Sessions, Pharmacy, Pharmacies, Pharmaceutical Services, Chronic Disease, Geriatrics, Primary Prevention

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