Mobile Health intervention (app) to support asthma self-management in adolescents

What is it about?

Adolescents with asthma do often not take their medication as prescribed. This results in poorly controlled asthma and increased morbidity. Therefore we developed the ADolescent Adherence Patient Tool (ADAPT). The aim of this tool is to support asthma self-management in adolescents and to increase medication adherence and asthma control. The ADAPT intervention consists of a smartphone application (app) connected to a desktop application for health care providers, in this study, the community pharmacist. The app contains different features to improve adherence, such as 1) a questionnaire function to rate asthma symptoms and monitor these over time; 2) short movie clips with medication and disease information; 3) a medication reminder; 4) a chat function with peers; and 5) a chat function with the pharmacist. The pharmacist receives data from the patient’s app through the desktop application, which enables the pharmacist to send information and feedback to the patient. The ADAPT intervention is tested in a community pharmacy-based cluster randomized controlled trial in the Netherlands, aiming to include 352 adolescents with asthma. The main outcome is adherence. In addition, asthma control, illness perceptions, medication beliefs, and asthma-related quality of life are measured. This study will provide in-depth knowledge on the effectiveness of an mobile health (mHealth) intervention to support asthma self-management in adolescents. These insights will also be useful for adolescents with other chronic diseases.

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Why is it important?

The ADAPT study uses new technologies to improve medication use in adolescents with asthma. We will evaluate the effectiveness of an mobile health (mHealth) intervention. The results of the ADAPT study will also be useful for adolescents with other chronic diseases, and for other mHealth interventions.

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