An Automated, Tailored Information Application for Medication Health Literacy

Health literacy is a critically important problem in improving the effectiveness of health care interventions. Patient behaviors essential to the successful treatment of HIV infection, such as high levels of medication adherence, may depend on patients understanding how to take medication, how to solve medication-related problems, and how to cope with medication side effects. An approach that has shown promise in promoting behavior change in HIV+ persons is the Information-Motivation-Behavior Skills (IMB) model. The intervention proposed in this application will implement a health literacy intervention based in part on insights about behavior change drawn from studies of this model. The purpose of the proposed research is to implement this intervention via a computer-based and automated tailored information application. Participants will first complete an automated computer-administered self interview (ACASI) that will assess medication knowledge, disease knowledge likely to be related to motivation, and problem solving skills. Results of this assessment will feed forward to an automated training application that provides individually-tailored training on these topics. This computer-based program will provide training, test understanding, and if necessary reteach and retest. It will also provide printed information for participants to take home to provide ongoing prompts. This study will comprise two phases. In the first, the program will be developed and tested with potential users to assess its usability and detect problems with the wording of materials. In the second phase, participants' health literacy and cognitive status will be evaluated, their adherence to a medication for HIV infection will be assessed using electronic monitoring, and the effects of the program on their adherence will be tested.