Patient and clinician perspectives on optimizing graphical displays of longitudinal medication adherence data.
Allison P Pack, Carol E Golin, Lauren M Hill and 8 others
PMID 30626550WHAT IT FOUND
Patients and HIV clinicians generally accepted prototypes showing weeks to months of drug levels from hair.
Low-literacy patients preferred test-tube pictures, and some needed explanation of how hair reflects dosing; participants asked for dates, legends, and clearer explanation.
Key findings
01Participants generally found the graphical prototypes acceptable, and patients of varying health literacy levels found the pictograph appealing.
02Nearly all patients with low literacy preferred the pictograph, while patients with adequate literacy largely preferred line or bar graphs.
03Clinicians wanted more detail than the prototypes showed, including units, dates, and information about test accuracy.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
Prototypes showed hypothetical data, which some patients found hard to comment on. The study was done in a single HIV clinic with patients taking ART, so it may not apply to other clinic populations or medications. An order effect may have influenced preference for the bar graph. Accuracy information for the hair test was not presented because validation was ongoing. Refusal rates were not tracked, and the study was small and formative.
Declared interests
The study was part of an NIAID-funded ENLIGHTEN project (R01AI122319), and the authors declared no competing interests.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this as evidence that hair-based graphs improve medication adherence. The study tested hypothetical prototypes with 30 patients and 29 clinicians and reported acceptability and comprehension, not clinical outcomes.