title: Unannounced telephone-based pill counts: a valid and feasible method for monitoring adherence.
abstract: Phone-based unannounced pill counts to measure medication adherence are much more practical and less expensive than home-based unannounced pill counts, but their validity has not been widely assessed. We examined the validity of phone versus home-based pill counts using a simplified protocol streamlined for studies embedded in clinical care settings. A total of 100 paired counts were used to compare concordance between unannounced phone and home-based pill counts using interclass correlations. Discrepancy analyses using χ(2) tests compared demographic and clinical characteristics across patients who were concordant between phone and home-based pill counts and patients who were not concordant. Concordance was high for phone-based and home-based unannounced total pill counts, as well as individual medication counts and calculated adherence. This study demonstrates that a simplified phone-based pill count protocol can be implemented among patients from a routine clinical care setting and is a feasible means of monitoring medication adherence.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Fredericksen
authors.forename: B J
authors.initials: BJ
authors.lastname: Feldman
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Brown
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Schmidt
authors.forename: P K
authors.initials: PK
authors.lastname: Crane
authors.forename: R D
authors.initials: RD
authors.lastname: Harrington
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Dhanireddy
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: McReynolds
authors.forename: W B
authors.initials: WB
authors.lastname: Lober
authors.forename: D R
authors.initials: DR
authors.lastname: Bangsberg
authors.forename: M M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Kitahata
authors.forename: Heidi M
authors.initials: HM
authors.lastname: Crane
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D019380:Anti-HIV Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use; D002985:Clinical Protocols; D004334:Drug Administration Schedule; D005260:Female; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000188:drug therapy*; D006792:House Calls / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D057566:Self Report; D013689:Telephone / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D014861:Washington / Q000453:epidemiology; D016903:Drug Monitoring
chemical_list: D019380:Anti-HIV Agents