Nurse-led medication self-management intervention in the improvement of medication adherence in adult patients with multi-morbidity: A Protocol for a Feasibility Randomized controlled trial.

BACKGROUND

Multimorbidity in adult patients puts them at a considerable risk of not taking their medications as prescribed. It is well known that patients with chronic conditions with self-management help is an excellent way to improve medication compliance. The impact of the medication self-management intervention in adult patients with multimorbidity is not well known, yet. This paper presents the protocol to assess the efficacy of a nurse-led medication self-management intervention in enhancing medication adherence and health outcomes for adult patients with multimorbidity.

METHODS

The Standard Protocol Items: Guidelines for Interventional Trials 2013 statement is followed by the study protocol. This study is a two-arm, single centre, open label, randomized controlled trial. Adult patients with multimorbidity will be recruited from National Cancer Center Research, QATAR. A total of 100 participants will be randomly assigned to either standard care alone or standard care along with the medication self-management intervention. Clinical nursing specialists will deliver the intervention. Three in-person education sessions and two weekly phone conversations for follow-up are part of the 6-week intervention. Participants in the control group continue to receive all aspects of the standard care provided by healthcare professionals, including consultations regarding patients' diseases and treatments, management of chronic conditions, prescription of medications, referrals to hospital specialists, health education, and management of chronic conditions.The 8-item mo-risky-8 Medication Adherence Scale was used to measure medication adherence as the primary outcome. Secondary outcomes include medication self-management capacity (medication knowledge, medication beliefs, and medication self-efficacy), treatment experiences (medication treatment satisfaction and treatment burden), and depressive symptoms. All outcomes will be assessed at baseline, immediately post-intervention, and at 3-month post-intervention.

DISCUSSION

This study will offer proof of the merits of a nurse-delivered medication self-management intervention for adult patients with multimorbidity and adherence issues. If the study findings are helpful in enhancing patient adherence and health outcomes, it is anticipated that they will offer healthcare professionals evidence-based self-management support tools for routine chronic condition management. The trial is registered at clinicaltrial.org (NCT05645653;9Dec2022).