JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Medication management among older adults continues to be a challenge and has led to the development of innovative electronic medication adherence products (eMAPs) to address this need.

Objective:

The aim of this study was to examine user experience, with particular emphasis on the features, usefulness, and preference for eMAPS.

Methods:

Older adults, caregivers, and healthcare providers tested the usability of 22 eMAPs. After testing five eMAPs, participants were invited to participate in a one-on-one interview to investigate participants perceptions and experiences with the features, usefulness, and preference for eMAPs tested. The interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed and analyzed using exploratory inductive coding to generate themes. The first interview was independently coded by two researchers and codes were matched to ensure coding definitions and consistency. The percent agreement after analysing the first 13 interviews was 78.5% between the two researchers. A single researcher analyzed the remaining interviews.

Results:

Of the 37 participants, 21 (56.8%) were older adults, 5 (13.5%) were caregivers, and 11 (29.7%) were healthcare providers. The themes and sub-themes generated from the qualitative analysis included functionality (sub-themes: simple to set-up and use, ability to be easily carried around, it’s too technical, user’ s capacity to setup and use the product, availability and usability of alerts and alarms, restricted access to medications, and storage capacity of the product), affordability and user attitudes and sentiments (sense of assurance or peace of mind, privacy and user frustration).

Conclusions:

eMAPs have the potential to enable independent medication management in older adults. The choice of a particular eMAP should be made after considering individual preferences to functionality, affordability and user’s sentiments. Older adults, caregivers, and healthcare professionals prefer eMAPs which are simple to set-up and use, portable, with easy to access medication compartments, secure and with adequate storage capacity. Clinical Trial: This trial was not registered