Intrasubject medication adherence patterns.

The purpose of this prospective descriptive study was to explore the patterns of intrasubject (between medication) adherence of two similarly timed, twice-daily medications using the Medication Event Management System electronic monitoring cap. Medication adherence was measured for 6 months using electronic monitoring in 25 adult renal-transplant recipients. Data were available from 7,119 electronic medication events. Results indicated that two twice-daily medications scheduled to be taken simultaneously were taken within 5 min of each other 77% of the time and within 10 min, 92% of the time. When only the first scheduled dose of the day was examined, the results are 79% and 95%, respectively. These findings are important to researchers and clinicians who must evaluate medication adherence in transplant recipients while balancing cost and subject burden. This study provides empirical support for monitoring a single immunosuppressive medication electronically to estimate medication adherence with double or triple immunosuppressive drug therapy.