ADHERENCE ENHANCERS IN PILL-RELATED CLINICAL-TRIALS - A HEALTH BEHAVIOR IN CANCER PREVENTION MODEL-BASED APPROACH

Preventing non-adherence and treating adherence failure are important to consider in designing community based clinical trials. The approach and methods for managing adherence are vital. This paper describes a practical and theoretically-based strategy for managing adherence in a small cancer prevention trial with subjects (n = 40) taking a non-ste roidal anti-inflammatory drug, piroxicam. Average daily pill intake ad herence was exceptionally high (97.4%) as measured by self-report cale ndar. Thus, the generalized adherence enhancement approach used in thi s study may have been a related factor, although statistical model-tes ting was not possible in this small trial. The generalized interventio n took into account factors such as the potential barriers and benefit s of being in the study, self-efficacy and satisfaction with the parti cipant/staff relationship, These and other theoretical variables were incorporated into an overall adherence strategy that is discussed.