EmPhAsIS: Empowering Pharmacists in Asthma Management Through Interactive SMS

University of British Columbia

Status: Completed

Conditions: Asthma

Treatments: Other: Interactive SMS; Other: Usual care

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT02170883

H14-01451

Details and patient eligibility

About

Between 8% and 12% of Canadians suffer from asthma. Although there are effective and inexpensive treatments, adherence to asthma treatment is amongst the lowest for all chronic diseases.The purpose of this study is to determine whether enhancing the role of community pharmacists in asthma management using interactive short messaging service (SMS) with asthma patients is a cost-effective model that will improve adherence to inhaled corticosteroid medications compared to usual care.

Enrollment: 271 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 14+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• individuals who fill a (incident or prevalent) prescription for inhaled corticosteroids (either monotherapy or in combination inhaler with long-acting beta-agonists) who have been diagnosed by a doctor as having asthma
• possessing a cell-phone with ability to send/receive text messages
• residing in British Columbia (BC), Canada and planning to reside in BC for the next 12 months
• registered with the medical services plan (MSP, the provincial insure of medically-required services) in the past 12 months, and planning to remain registered for the next 12 months
• designated pharmacy being the main drugstore for patient
• not participating in another interventional study
• consent to participate in the study.

Exclusion criteria

• Unable to communicate in English
• Under 14 years of age

Trial design

Primary purpose: Health Services Research

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

---

271 participants in 2 patient groups

Interactive SMS

Experimental group

Description:

Intervention with interactive SMS (text messaging) by which patients are asked to disclose their level of agreement with the following statement "I follow my asthma medication plan" and pharmacist follow-up

Treatment:

Other: Interactive SMS

Usual care

Active Comparator group

Description:

Pharmacist conducted patient education, counseling and action-plan

Treatment:

Other: Usual care