A novel digital health intervention to improve patient engagement to stimulants in adult ADHD in the primary care setting: Preliminary findings from an open label study

Aims: We piloted the effectiveness and acceptability of a novel text messaging-based (SMS) digital health intervention aimed at addressing the previously documented poor rate of patient engagement in stimulant treatment in the primary care setting. Methods: 117 adults ages 18-55 from primary care and psychiatric practices who were prescribed a stimulant medication for ADHD treatment received the SMS intervention. Comparators were age-, race-, and sex-matched patients from the same health care organization's electronic medical record who had been prescribed stimulant medications over a similar time period. Using documented prescription records, we determined whether patients had timely prescription refills. Results: Ninety-six percent (N = 112) of participants completed our a priori metric of patient engagement consisting of 37 days of the SMS program. Eighty-one percent of participants refilled their index prescriptions in a timely manner compared to only 36% of patients receiving treatment as usual (OR=7.54, 95% CI: 4.46, 12.77; p<0.001). We found no significant interaction between prescribing source (non-psychiatry vs. psychiatry) and intervention group (SMS vs. treatment as usual). Conclusions: These data suggest that an ADHD-centric, digital health intervention using text messaging significantly improves patient engagement in stimulant treatment in adults with ADHD.