Aging and medical adherence: the use of automatic processes to achieve effortful things.
This research examined whether forming detailed implementation plans for achieving a goal improved older adults' adherence to a health behavior. Nondiabetic participants (N = 31) rehearsed, deliberated, or formed implementation intentions to perform home blood glucose monitoring, 4 times daily for 3 weeks. The implementation group performed tests nearly 50% more often than the 2 comparison groups. Results were not attributable to a priori differences in intentions to perform testing. Findings indicate that implementation intentions can facilitate older adults' performance of important medical self-care tasks in naturalistic settings over sustained periods of time and concur with previous research that implicates automatic cognitive processes that do not show age-related decline. These results support the utility of this technique for improving adherence to health behaviors in clinical populations.
Liu
Linda L
LL
Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA. lindaliu@umich.edu
Park
Denise C
DC
D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology*; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001332:Automatism; D001786:Blood Glucose / Q000378:metabolism; D003071:Cognition; D006040:Goals; D015438:Health Behavior; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010349:Patient Compliance / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*
D001786:Blood Glucose