Medicine help worked a little; help linked to habits worked better.

The review

1. 01

   Who took part

   568,811 people took part in 771 studies, about 98 in a typical study. The typical study's average age was about 56, and most studies were in North America.

2. 02

   What they did

   Each study compared help with taking medicines against a group that got usual care or basic contact. The help used many methods, such as reminders, tracking, teaching, rewards and habit work.

3. 03

   What happened

   Overall, the help worked a little: the other groups took about 77 in every 100 prescribed doses, the help groups about 84. Help linked to habits, and help with reminders or rewards, did better, but help aimed at beliefs made no clear difference. Overall results showed signs of publication bias, and many studies had weak designs.

What the review found

1. Helped

   Help with taking medicines got people to take their medicine as planned more often than the other group did.

   Pooled analysis of 739 studies with 568,811 people · vs a group that got usual care or basic contact · ⚠ signs that small negative studies went unpublished; the studies disagreed a lot; whole programmes were tested, so no single part can be credited

2. Helped

   Help that linked taking medicine to an existing habit worked better than help that did not.

   • Rule: Anchor it to an old habittested

   Pooled analysis of 0 studies · vs help that did not link it to a habit · ⚠ whole programmes were tested, so no single part can be credited

3. Helped

   Help that used methods such as reminders and rewards worked better than help without them.

   • Action: Track your progresstested
   • Rule: Get a remindertested
   • Rule: Get a reward or payment for doing ittested

   Pooled analysis of 739 studies · vs help with none of these methods · ⚠ whole programmes were tested, so no single part can be credited

4. No difference

   Help that tried to change beliefs or knowledge did no better than help without that.

   Pooled analysis of 739 studies · vs help that did not try to change beliefs or knowledge · ⚠ whole programmes were tested, so no single part can be credited

Source