Feasibility study of a digitalized nurse practitioner-led intervention to improve medication adherence in type 2 diabetes patients in Dutch primary care

PURPOSE: The purpose of this feasibility study was to improve and implement an intervention aimed at enhancing medication adherence in sub-optimally controlled and non-adherent type 2 diabetes (T2DM) patients in primary care. METHODS: Four phases were completed: (1) context analysis, (2) collaboration protocol development, (3) digitalization, and (4) process evaluation. Two community pharmacies and seven general practices participated. In phase 1, two focus groups were conducted, of which one with healthcare providers (HCP, N = 5) and one with patients (N = 11). In phase 4, four semi-structured interviews and one focus group (N = 6) were conducted with healthcare providers. The goal of these focus groups and interviews was to obtain insights into current care to support medication adherence (phase 1), opportunities for collaboration (phase 2) and process evaluation (phase 4). Data were analyzed in Atlas.ti using thematic analyses. RESULTS: Both T2DM patients and HCPs considered medication adherence vital. Suboptimal collaboration between HCPs and unreliable ways to monitor medication non-adherence appeared important barriers for adequate care to support medication adherence (phase 1). The nurse practitioner (NP) was chosen as the interventionist with supportive roles for other HCPs (phase 2). All components of the intervention were digitalized (phase 3). The implementation of the digitalized intervention was reported to be suboptimal (phase 4). Main reasons were that pharmacy refill data were unreliable, NPs experienced difficulties addressing medication non-adherence adequately and collaboration between HCPs was suboptimal. CONCLUSIONS: The medication adherence enhancing intervention was successfully digitalized, but implementation of the digitalized intervention appeared not feasible as of yet. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s40814-021-00892-2.