Related Experiment Video
Updated: Dec 29, 2025

Digital Home-Monitoring of Patients after Kidney Transplantation: The MACCS Platform
Published on: April 12, 2021
Do mobile device apps designed to support medication adherence demonstrate efficacy? A systematic review of
Laura Catherine Armitage1,2, Aikaterini Kassavou2, Stephen Sutton2
1Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK laura.armitage@phc.ox.ac.uk.
Objectives:
To estimate the efficacy of app-based interventions designed to support medication adherence and investigate which behaviour change techniques (BCTs) used by the apps are associated with efficacy.
Design:
Systematic review of randomised controlled trials (RCTs), with meta-analysis.
Setting:
Medline/PubMed, PsycINFO, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, Embase and Web of Science were searched from 1990 to November 2018 for RCTs conducted in any healthcare setting.
Participants:
Studies of participants of any age taking prescribed medication for any health condition and for any duration.
Intervention:
An app-based intervention delivered through a smartphone, tablet computer or personal digital assistant to help, support or advise about medication adherence.
Comparator:
One of (1) usual care, (2) a control app which did not use any BCTs to improve medication adherence or (3) a non-app-based comparator.
Primary And Secondary Outcome Measures:
The primary outcome was the pooled effect size of changes in medication adherence. The secondary outcome was the association between BCTs used by the apps and the effect size.
Results:
The initial search identified 13 259 citations. After title and abstract screening, full-text articles of 83 studies were screened for eligibility. Nine RCTs with 1159 recruited participants were included. The mean age of participants was >50 years in all but one study. Health conditions of target populations included cardiovascular disease, depression, Parkinson's disease, psoriasis and multimorbidity. The meta-analysis indicated that patients who use mobile apps to support them in taking medications are more likely to self-report adherence to medications (OR 2.120, 95% CI 1.635 to 2.747, n=988) than those in the comparator groups. Meta-regression of the BCTs did not reveal any significant associations with effect size.
Conclusions:
App-based medication adherence interventions may have a positive effect on patient adherence. Larger scale studies are required to further evaluate this effect, including long-term sustainability, and intervention and participant characteristics that are associated with efficacy and app usage.
Prospero Registration Number:
PROSPERO Protocol Registration Number: CRD42017080150.
Related Concept Videos
Drug Therapy
Antianxiety Medications
Therapeutic Drug Monitoring: Affecting Factors
Drug Dosing: Geriatric Patients
Antidepressant Drugs: MAOIs and Other Agents
Dosage Regimens: Designs and Approaches
Measurement of Bioavailability: Pharmacodynamic Methods

