A review of health behaviour theories: how useful are these for developing interventions to promote long-term medication adherence for TB and HIV/AIDS?
2007

Review of Health Behaviour Theories for TB and HIV Medication Adherence

publication Evidence: low

Author Information

Author(s): Salla Munro, Simon Lewin, Tanya Swart, Jimmy Volmink

Primary Institution: South African Cochrane Centre, Medical Research Council of South Africa

Hypothesis

How useful are health behaviour theories for developing interventions to promote long-term medication adherence for TB and HIV/AIDS?

Conclusion

Further research is urgently needed to determine which models might best improve adherence to long-term treatment regimens.

Supporting Evidence

  • Suboptimal treatment adherence is a major barrier to controlling TB and HIV/AIDS.
  • Few interventions developed to address adherence explicitly draw on health behaviour theories.
  • Existing theories need further examination to determine their relevance to long-term medication adherence.

Takeaway

This study looks at different theories that might help people stick to their medicine for TB and HIV. It found that we need to learn more about which theories work best.

Methodology

The paper reviews behaviour change theories applicable to long-term treatment adherence and assesses their effectiveness in predicting behaviour change.

Limitations

There is little empirical evidence on the effectiveness of these theories in promoting adherence, and many theories have not been explicitly tested in this context.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

10.1186/1471-2458-7-104

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