TIES2 feasibility study
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Mobile telephone contingency management to encourage adherence to supervised medication among individuals receiving opioid agonist treatment: a feasibility study (TIES2)
IRAS ID
321647
Contact name
Nicola Metrebian
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
King's College London
ISRCTN Number
ISRCTN33965312
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 11 months, 30 days
Research summary
RESEARCH AIM
To understand if it’s feasible to conduct research to test whether financial incentives, delivered by mobile phone, encourage patients to take prescribed medication under community pharmacist supervision.BACKGROUND
Most people treated for heroin addiction are prescribed methadone or buprenorphine to help them to stop using heroin safely and avoid withdrawal. If people do not take these medications as directed, they may be asked to take a daily dose under a pharmacist’s supervision. Supervision ensures patients take their prescribed dose every day and prevents diversion and overdose. If a patient misses their dose, they will experience opiate withdrawal and may crave heroin. If they miss three daily doses, people lose their tolerance to the drug and risk overdosing. Unfortunately, many patients miss their doses and pharmacists do not always let their doctors know. Research suggests financial incentives might improve medication adherence.
We have developed technology which delivers financial incentives using mobile telephones and automatically alerts doctors when doses are missed. We have tested the feasibility of using telephones to deliver incentives and the early warning system and found it was acceptable to patients, drug service staff, doctors, and pharmacists.DESIGN
We aim to recruit 60 patients to the study. Patients will be eligible if they have missed 3 doses of their methadone or buprenorphine and are re-presenting at the drug clinic for a dose assessment/re-start. Two South London and Maudsley (SLaM) and one Turning Point drug treatment services (each with 7 allied pharmacies) will be recruited. Services will be randomly allocated to one of three interventions:
(a) praise and financial incentives via text message
b) reminders via text message
(c) no text messages.
Patients will receive the intervention for 12 weeks. We will assess the procedures for recruiting patients, and whether we can track patients to measure their outcomes.REC name
West Midlands - Black Country Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
23/WM/0098
Date of REC Opinion
23 May 2023
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion