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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2018 Jan 1.
Published in final edited form as: Med Clin North Am. 2017 Jan;101(1):229–245. doi: 10.1016/j.mcna.2016.08.005

Table 1.

Strategies for promoting medication adherence

Strategy Description Examples
Patient education Didactic or interactive
 approaches to provide
 information and educate
 patients		 • Face-to-face education session
• Written or audiovisual
 education
• Mailed instructional material
Social support Enlistment of family members,
 friends, or other individuals to
 support patients in taking
 their medications as
 prescribed		 • Lay health mentoring
• Group support meetings
• Family education
Patient motivation Motivation of patients to take
 their medication as prescribed
 and removal of barriers that
 work against their motivation		 • Motivational interviewing
• Case management
• Problem-solving
• Decisional balance activities
• Self-monitoring and feedback
 (see the next two rows)
Self-monitoring Enlistment of patients to
 monitor their own BP or
 adherence		 • Home or ambulatory BP
 monitoring
• Home titration90
Feedback Feedback to patients about their
 adherence or BP		 • Telemonitoring of BP data
• Rewards for meeting BP goals
Reminders Reminders to patients to take
 their medications		 • Calendars
• Alarms
• Pillboxes
Drug packaging Changes in packaging of
 medications, intended to
 remind patients and/or give
 feedback about medication
 taking behavior		 • Pillboxes
• Blister packaging
• Adherence packets
Regimen
 simplification		 Prescription changes or changes
 in dosage schedule to simplify
 the regimen		 • Combination pills
• Once-daily dosing
Reduction of out-
 of-pocket costs		 Reduction of patient out-of
 pocket drug costs		 • Reduced medication
 copayments
• Improved drug prescription
 coverage
Communication or
 interactions with
 provider		 Improvements in patient-
 provider communication or
 interactions		 • Communication skills training
 for patients and/or clinicians
Allied health providers
 and collaborative
 care		 Enlistment of allied health care
 providers, individually or
 working as collaborative
 teams, to implement the
 intervention		 • Pharmacist-delivered
 interventions
• Nurse-delivered interventions
• Team-based care

Abbreviation: BP, blood pressure