Development of an mHealth application for adherence to psychotropic medication

Approximately one out of two patients do not take their medication three months after therapy starts, while in patients with mental disorders this number varies i.e. 35%-45% for bipolar disorder. The WHO published a guide for clinicians, advising them to develop strategies for improving medication adherence. Based on this need, the aim of our project is to develop and evaluate a smartphone application that will help patients adhere to their psychotropic medication and help clinicians to keep track of their patients’ adherence. This project incorporates 4 phases: a) investigating the application’s features, using patients and clinicians focus groups, b) building the application, c) investigating usability using the focus groups and d) evaluating and validating the application with a clustered randomized control trial. We are expecting that the application users will show higher levels of medication adherence, in comparison with patients receiving usual care. Project is in the early stages of development. Implementing such an app will lead to an effective and low cost method for improving psychotropic medication adherence with significant improvement for both patients and clinicians.