Use of Social Media to Improve Medication Adherence in Adolescents and Young Adults With Systemic Lupus

Penn State Health

Status: Completed

Conditions: Systemic Lupus

Treatments: Behavioral: Social Media

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT03218033

038689EP

Details and patient eligibility

About

The goal of this study was to examine the effect of an online educational program with and without a social media experience.The primary goal of this study was to determine whether medication adherence would be improved by having adolescents and young adults with systemic lupus erythematosus participate in an online educational website, with or without a social media experience. The secondary goal was to determine whether secondary outcomes such as quality of life, stress, and self-efficacy improved in this model, and whether these changes were associated with improvements in medication management.

Full description

Self-management skills, including medication management, are vital to the health of adolescents and young adults with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Non-adherence with medications in patients with systemic lupus has been noted to be as poor as 40%. Success in disease control can be significantly impacted by such non-adherence. Poor medication compliance is associated with higher SLE disease activity scores and higher SLE disease activity in turn has been demonstrated to be significantly associated with a decline in quality of life. Much attention has been paid to how to improve self-management skills in adults, but less is known about how to target adolescents, an age group with a complex set of emotional and developmental needs.

The goal of this study was to examine the effect of an online educational program with and without a social media experience.The primary goal of this study was to determine whether medication adherence would be improved by having adolescents and young adults with SLE participate in an online educational website, with or without a social media experience. The secondary goal was to determine whether secondary outcomes such as quality of life, stress, and self-efficacy improved in this model, and whether these changes were associated with improvements in medication management.

Enrollment: 37 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 13 to 23 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• age between 13 and 23 at the time of recruitment
• having the diagnosis of SLE made or confirmed by a pediatric or adult rheumatologist at Penn State Children's Hospital/Hershey Medical Center
• having regular internet access.

Exclusion criteria

• age <13 or >23 years
• comorbid medical or psychiatric illness that would affect the outcome measures.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Other

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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37 participants in 2 patient groups

Control

No Intervention group

Description:

Participants visited the Facinglupustogether.com website and participated in consecutive weekly modules for 8 weeks. At the end of each module there were questions pertaining to the subject of each module. The control group answered the questions in provided journals and these were sent back to the investigator. All subjects completed surveys in REDCap prior to the study intervention and again 6 weeks after study completion to assess secondary outcome measures. Medication adherence was assessed by calculating a medication possession ratio by acquiring information on fill dates at the subjects' pharmacies.

Social Media (SM)

Active Comparator group

Description:

The intervention phase was 8 weeks in duration. Participants visited the Facinglupustogether.com website and participated in consecutive weekly modules. 8 The SM group answered the questions at the end of each module on a blogging site with other SM participants. SM participants were encouraged to provide feedback or questions about the material or personal questions that arose in response to each module. All subjects completed surveys in REDCap prior to the study intervention and again 6 weeks after study completion to assess secondary outcome measures. Medication adherence was assessed by calculating a medication possession ratio by acquiring information on fill dates at the subjects' pharmacies.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Social Media