Assessing patient adherence to medication is necessary to distinguish between nonadherence and inferior drug efficacy, which is crucial to avoid poor clinical outcomes. Adherence measurements pose various challenges, because many methods rely on subjective assessments or slow and costly measurements, which are infeasible in resource-poor settings. Recent developments of new medical devices for delivery of medications requires additional considerations in adherence. In this report, we propose that medical devices may serve a dual-functional purpose: to deliver the drug(s) and monitor adherence. We provide an illustrative case study that involves assessing the adherence of vaginal rings for delivery of antiretroviral drugs for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) of HIV.
© 2016 Research Triangle Institute.