Evaluation of medication adherence methods in the treatment of malaria in Rwandan infants

OBJECTIVES: To compare three methods for evaluating treatment adherence in a 7-day controlled treatment period for malaria in children in Rwanda. METHODS: Fifty-six children (< 5 years) with malaria were recruited at the University Hospital of Butare, Rwanda. Patients were treated with quinine sulfate, taste-masked, pellets during seven days: three days in hospital (in-patient) followed by a four-day out-patient period. Three methods to evaluate medication adherence among patients were compared: manual pill count of returned tablets, patient self-report and electronic pill-box monitoring. These pill-boxes were equipped with a microchip registering date and time of every opening. Medication adherence was defined as the proportion of prescribed doses taken. The inter-dose intervals were analysed as well. RESULTS: Medication adherence data were available for 54 of the 56 patients. Manual pill count and patient self-report yielded a medication adherence of 100% for the in- and out-patient treatment periods. Based on electronic pill-box monitoring, medication adherence during the seven-day treatment period was 90.5 ± 8.3%. Based on electronic pill-box monitoring inpatient medication adherence (99.3 ± 2.7%) was markedly higher (p < 0.03) than out-patient adherence (82.7 ± 14.7%), showing a clear difference between health workers' and consumers' medication adherence. CONCLUSION: Health workers' medication adherence was good. However, a significant lower medication adherence was observed for consumers' adherence in the outpatient setting. This was only detected by electronic pill-box monitoring. Therefore, this latter method is more accurate than the two other methods used in this study.