Interventions for improving medication-taking ability and adherence in older adults prescribed multiple medications

Behavioural only or mixed educational and behavioural interventions may improve the proportion of people who satisfactorily adhere to their prescribed medications, but we are uncertain of the effects of educational only interventions. No type of intervention was found to improve adherence when it was measured as a continuous variable, with educational only and mixed interventions having little or no impact and evidence of insufficient quality to determine the effects of behavioural only interventions. We were unable to determine the impact of interventions on medication-taking ability. The quality of evidence for these findings is low due to heterogeneity and methodological limitations of studies included in the review. Further well-designed RCTs are needed to investigate the effects of interventions for improving medication-taking ability and medication adherence in older adults prescribed multiple medications.