School of Pharmacy, University of Waterloo, Kitchener, Ontario, Canada.
Centre for Family Medicine Family Health Team, Kitchener, Ontario, Canada.
PLoS One. 2024 Nov 19;19(11):e0296528. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0296528. eCollection 2024.
Non-adherence to prescribed medication regimens can lead to suboptimal control of chronic health conditions and increased hospitalizations. Older adults may find it particularly challenging to self-manage medications due to physical and cognitive limitations, resulting in medication non-adherence. While automated medication dispensing technologies may offer a solution for medication self-management among older adults, these technologies must demonstrate usability before effectiveness can be investigated and products made available for widespread use. This study will aim to measure usability, workload, and unassisted task completion rates of an automated medication dispenser and medication adherence dashboard on the Medipense portal with older adults and their clinicians, respectively. This study is designed as a convergent parallel mixed-methods observational study with older adults and their clinicians. Usability will be examined with the use of the System Usability Scale (SUS) while NASA Load Index (NASA-TLX) will be utilized to assess the workload of both the device and the adherence monitoring platform. Cognitive walkthrough will be utilized prior to usability testing to identify series of steps required to use the automated dispenser and adherence dashboard. The study will assess the unassisted task completion rates to successfully operate the device. Semi-structured interviews with both types of participants will provide qualitative data with which to comprehensively gauge the automated dispenser user experience. The results of this study will allow us to examine usability of both the automated medication dispensing system and the adherence monitoring dashboard from older adult and health-care provider perspectives. The results of this study will highlight and address the challenges with usability that older adults and health-care providers may face with this device and dashboard. The results of this study will be used to optimize the usability of both the automated medication dispenser and the adherence dashboard. In clinical practice, usability of technology is important to establish prior to full-scale implementation. Products that are not user friendly, add to workload, impact workflow, or are difficult to navigate by both clinicians and population in general may not be adopted. Usability permits an evaluation of the products, to identify problems that must be addressed prior to implementation and to ensure products are useful in clinical practice.
不遵守规定的药物治疗方案可能导致慢性健康状况的控制不佳和住院率增加。由于身体和认知方面的限制，老年人可能特别难以自我管理药物，从而导致药物不依从。虽然自动化药物分发技术可能为老年人的药物自我管理提供解决方案，但在研究其有效性并为广泛使用提供产品之前，这些技术必须具有可用性。本研究旨在分别测量老年人及其临床医生对 Medipense 门户上的自动化药物分配器和药物依从性仪表板的可用性、工作量和无辅助任务完成率。这项研究是一项与老年人及其临床医生一起进行的收敛平行混合方法观察性研究。将使用系统可用性量表 (SUS) 来检查可用性，同时将使用 NASA 负荷指数 (NASA-TLX) 来评估设备和依从性监测平台的工作量。在进行可用性测试之前，将使用认知走查来识别使用自动化分配器和依从性仪表板所需的一系列步骤。该研究将评估无辅助任务完成率，以成功操作设备。对两种类型的参与者进行半结构化访谈，提供定性数据，以全面评估自动化分配器的用户体验。这项研究的结果将使我们能够从老年人和医疗保健提供者的角度检查自动化药物分发系统和依从性监测仪表板的可用性。这项研究的结果将突出和解决老年人和医疗保健提供者在使用该设备和仪表板时可能面临的可用性挑战。这项研究的结果将用于优化自动化药物分配器和依从性仪表板的可用性。在临床实践中，在全面实施之前，重要的是要确定技术的可用性。对于临床医生和一般人群来说，如果产品不友好、增加工作量、影响工作流程或难以导航，那么这些产品可能不会被采用。可用性允许对产品进行评估，以识别在实施之前必须解决的问题，并确保产品在临床实践中有用。
