Skills4Adherence online educational program helps to increase the capacity of healthcare professionals to manage polypharmacy and patient adherence in elderly

Objectives:

Rapid ageing of the global population creates enormous challenge to the healthcare and social security systems. Ageing leads to multimorbidity, which in turn leads to polypharmacy. Polypharmacy is not only the risk factor for drug-drug interactions and adverse effects, it also increases the chances for medication non-adherence. This complex puzzle is a reason for poor health outcomes, and increased costs. Unfortunately, healthcare professionals are not fully prepared to manage this problem, which in near future will even rise. In order to change this negative scenario, three European partners joined forces within the Skills4Adherence project, developed within ERASMUS+ framework. The ultimate aim of Skills4Adherence was the creation of the comprehensive educational program able to increase the capacity of healthcare professionals to manage patient adherence and polypharmacy in elderly.

Methods:

Several targeted systematic literature searches have been performed to collect up-to-date evidence and lay the foundation for the educational program. Identified interventions of proven effectiveness and cost-effectiveness have been shortlisted for each of the three dimensions of adherence, polypharmacy, and behavioural aspects. After a round of cross-dimension comparing, a final selection of interventions has been made. These have been covered by preliminary educational program, which has been piloted in iterative way with two Skills4Adherence Summer Schools (2018 and 2019 editions) participants. Their feedback has been analysed, and used to fine-tune the program.

Results:

Final educational program has been built out of 10 items of video-recorded material and self-testing tool. Cohesive content of this program provides basic information and practical guidance for healthcare students and professionals on how to manage patient adherence and polypharmacy in elderly. The program is available free of charge at the project web site www.Skills4Adherence.eu in 4 languages (English, Italian, Polish, and Portuguese).

Conclusions:

Skills4Adherence educational program provides for the first time complete online course of education in polypharmacy and non-adherence management in elderly. Pragmatic approach being used in designing its content led to the selection of less time-consuming interventions. Several rounds of consultations with the final end-users assured its usability, and are expected to help its uptake. Thus, we believe that the program will help to effectively tackle the major health problem coming with aging of global population.

Disclaimer: Co-funded by ERASMUS+ Programme of the European Union