Designing for patient-centred factors in medical adherence technology

Abstract

Adherence to medication regimes is essential in the treatment of illnesses and maintaining of health, especially for the elderly. Interventions in improving medical adherence have been the subject of much research. However, there is insufficient elaboration of the patient-centred factors that improve the acceptance of technological aids in medical adherence. The authors present two paper prototypes of interactive systems that aim at helping the elderly to manage their own medication and improve adherence. The first prototype, a mobile phone application had many acceptance issues. These objections were used to direct the design of a low-effort and non-intrusive medicine box system that leverages on familiarity with users' existing adherence methods. Preliminary evaluations with elderly users indicate that apart from the ease of use and usefulness of a technology, users' prior experiences may be a key factor in increasing the acceptance of these technological aids.