Abstract:
Abstract
Background: Poor epileptic treatment adherence compromises the effectiveness of
patient’s medication and results in suboptimal illness control. This can lead to increased
use of healthcare services, reduction in patients’ quality of life, and increased healthcare
costs. Reminding patients’ medication intake appears to be most promising in increasing
their adherence.
Objective: To assess willingness to receive mobile drug reminders and identify factors
associated with willingness among epileptic patients at the University of Gondar
Comprehensive Specialized Hospital, North West Ethiopia.
Methods: Institution based cross sectional study on 422 epileptic patients was conducted
from March 1 to April 30, 2018 at UOGCSH, Neurology Center. Systematic random
sampling was used to select study participants. A structured interviewer administered
questionnaire was used to collect data. The collected data were analyzed by using SPSS
version 21. Binary and multivariable logistic regression analysis was performed to identify
associated factors for willingness to receive cellphone based medication reminders. P <
0.05 at 95% confidence interval was considered statistically significant.
Results: a total of 394
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Conclusion: 66.5% of the respondents have a cellphone and are willing to use it as a
medication reminder. Marital status, place of residence, average monthly income,
experience of forgetting things since they started AED, forget to take AED are the most
notable factors that are associated with the willingness of patients to receive cell phone
based drug reminder messages. Depending on our study result we recommend UOGCSH
to implement cell phone based drug reminder messaging service for epileptic patients who
have follow up in the hospital.
Key words: Cell phone, drug adherence, Drug reminders, Epilepsy, Willingness.
