According to a new study from Adherent Health, a mobile health engagement advisory focused on medication safe-use, adherence, and health outcomes attainment, nearly three-quarters of prescription-takers use mobile apps, including most older adults and seniors.
Mobile app adoption rates are high across all medication-taking adult age groups: 93% (age 18-24), 90% (age 25-34), 88% (age 35-44), 80% (age 45-54), 66% (age 55-64), and 50% (age 65+).
Among other study findings, prescription-taking patients using mobile apps were similar to their non-app using counterparts in terms of annual income, education level, and geographic region.
Conducted in the first quarter of 2014, the 2014 Patient Preference Study surveyed the mobile app behaviors and medication support preferences of 2,216 prescription-taking patients aged 18-65+.
"This is a high rate of mobile app use among prescription-taking patients of all ages, including those 65+" remarked Michael A. Weber, MD, Professor of Medicine at the SUNY Downstate College of Medicine in Brooklyn, and Editor-In Chief of the Journal of Clinical Hypertension. "Apps represent an attractive communications medium to better support patient understanding, medication adherence, and medication safe-use."
Approximately half of America's 187 million prescription-takers are non-adherent, meaning they do not take their medications as prescribed.
App-using patients prefer a privacy-protected single app (such as Adherent’s Mobile Health Library system) by a factor of 11 to 1 over email programs often offered by medication manufacturers. This high preference for a privacy-protected single app, customized to a user's needs for medication education and support services, was observed across all adult age groups.
"I'm not surprised that most patients would prefer a single privacy-protected app that supports medication dosing reminders, ongoing education, and co-pay and affordability needs" said Amy C. Sidorski, MS, CRNP, BSN, RN of Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins University, and member of the ONS:Edge Oncology Nurse Experts Panel. "Especially one they receive from their physician or nurse."
