Albert Einstein College of Medicine, United States.
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, United States.
Sex Reprod Healthc. 2021 Sep;29:100618. doi: 10.1016/j.srhc.2021.100618. Epub 2021 Apr 2.
For patients relying only on oral contraceptive pills (OCPs) for pregnancy prevention, timely and correct usage of OCPs is essential. This study describes the prevalence of reminder systems used among our patients, the patient population that uses those reminder systems, and whether the reminder system was effective for the user in terms of not missing pills per pack.
We conducted a cross-sectional survey among 102 OCP users at 3 individual clinics in the UCLA Health System. To quantify OCP adherence, we used the unit pill pack to indicate one month's supply of OCPs.
Majority of patients were young educated individuals who used OCPs for 1 year or longer. 44% of participants used strictly technology-based reminders including alarms, phone applications, and text-based systems. 25% of participants used only traditional reminders, including co-administration with other medications, location placement, and as part of a morning/evening routine. 6% of participants used a combination of technology-based and traditional reminders. 21% of participants did not rely on any reminder system for OCP self-administration. 4% of participants used "Other or Unknown" reminder systems. The majority of participants missed less than 2 pills in their pill pack. Those who relied on technological reminders missed pills more frequently than those who depended on traditional reminders.
Our results indicate that despite growing prevalence of technology-based reminder systems, traditional reminders are as prevalent as the technology-based ones. There was no difference in the number of missed pills between the two groups. The study is limited by the use of convenience sampling. Our study sheds light on strategies that a majority young and educated patient population might use to increase OCP adherence.
对于仅依靠口服避孕药 (OCP) 来避孕的患者，及时且正确使用 OCP 至关重要。本研究描述了我们的患者中使用提醒系统的流行情况、使用这些提醒系统的患者人群，以及该提醒系统在防止用户漏服每片药方面是否对用户有效。
我们在 UCLA 健康系统的 3 个独立诊所对 102 名 OCP 用户进行了横断面调查。为了量化 OCP 依从性，我们使用单位药包表示一个月的 OCP 供应量。
大多数患者是接受过教育的年轻人，他们使用 OCP 的时间为 1 年或更长时间。44%的参与者使用严格基于技术的提醒方式，包括闹钟、手机应用程序和基于文本的系统。25%的参与者仅使用传统提醒方式，包括与其他药物同时服用、位置放置和作为早晨/晚上常规的一部分。6%的参与者使用了基于技术和传统提醒方式的组合。21%的参与者不依赖任何 OCP 自我管理的提醒系统。4%的参与者使用“其他或未知”提醒系统。大多数参与者在药包中漏服的药片少于 2 片。依赖技术提醒的参与者比依赖传统提醒的参与者漏服的药片更频繁。
我们的研究结果表明，尽管基于技术的提醒系统越来越流行，但传统提醒方式与基于技术的提醒方式一样普遍。这两组在漏服药片的数量上没有差异。该研究的局限性在于使用了便利抽样。本研究揭示了大多数年轻且受过教育的患者群体可能会采用的增加 OCP 依从性的策略。
