How to improve patient adherence?

On the 14th of March, Julie Buis (Aequus Research) and Peter Cunningham (Branding Science Group) delivered an EPhMRA webinar dedicated to patient adherence.

It was recognised that non-adherence to treatment is under-evaluated and that it has a considerable financial impact. Some groups of patients are more likely than others to show poor adherence to treatments and adherence varies across treatments and therapy areas. There are many causes for the lack of adherence, which may leave physicians frustrated and/or powerless. The pharmaceutical industry may be able to help, by developing patient support materials and programs, that will be endorsed by the relevant healthcare professionals. 

But beyond the execution and tools such as youtube videos and leaflets, we need to understand the underlying causes of non adherence as well as the key drivers for adherence. Understanding what drives adherence as well as what drives the lack of adherence will enable to develop strategies to encourage the right behaviour.

However, encouraging a certain behaviour (in this case patient adherence) is a very particular communication challenge because behaviours result from a multiplicity of interdependent factors. Hence, to increase patient adherence, the pharma industry and physicians alike need to understand the language as well as the arguments that resonate with patients.

The short film below illustrates the various purposes of communication and how a better understanding of your audience will help shape stronger, more effective messages.

If you would like to learn more about patient adherence, the webinar is still available for members on the EPhMRA website. It discussed the definitions of patient adherence and why it is an important issue for the pharmaceutical industry. It also explored further the causes for poor adherence and commented on the current array of programs designed to improve adherence.

The author: Axel Rousseau is brand scientist at Branding-Science and has been working on international market research and consultancy since 2008.

Fancy reading our annual report?

Market research, like financial reports sometimes face the same challenge. They need to get important information across about a specific market, various stakeholders or the way a company is going, so that the audience (or readers) can digest the information and make the most of it.

Listing a series of facts and figures can very quickly become exhausting for the audience, yet market research and financial communications need to fairly describe the reality - and if you are at the receiving end, you certainly want the most comprehensive picture that you can get!

This is why, at Branding Science, we strive to deliver our presentations using different media and engaging methods. Now, I have to apologise here for the misleading title of this blog as it isn't our annual report I would like to share with you, but rather, United Therapeutics' 2010 annual report (PDF).

As a great example of delivering information through an engaging story, they published this report as a comic book. Could your next detail aid be done in the same way?

The author: Axel Rousseau is brand scientist (SRE) at Branding-Science and has been working on international market research and consultancy since 2008.

The value of teamwork

A few weeks ago, one of the workshops we facilitated was introduced to the team with the following video:

The point was to emphasise the value of teamwork:

• Each of these 5 people perfectly play their role in delivering the song
• The coordination of the band doesn't tell how much rehearsal and training has been invested in this video - but we guess it's been hard work!
• They only have one guitar - Even with relatively little means, what a fantastic achievement for these guys!?

Although it is a bit of a long video and everyone got the point in the first minute, I found this example extremely inspiring. To me, it shows that with creativity and the right energy, you can achieve extraordinary results. And what is more relevant when your key challenge is to do more with less?

The author: Axel Rousseau is brand scientist (SRE) at Branding-Science and has been working on international market research and consultancy since 2008.

So what does the Rapid Physician Decision task look like?

A short demo.....

So how does RPD differ from traditional qualitative research techniques and just what does it add? Here’s an example of how it can be used in treatment decision making research based on patient profiles -

-          Physician is presented with a self-guided computer based task

-          The test begins; the physician is presented with a set of patient profiles to read

-          After each, the physician is then asked to pick his 1^st/2^nd/3^rd line of treatment, with a number of treatment options given (to mine real gut instinct and avoid ‘driving blind’ through the test, questions can be time limited and options randomised)

-          Once complete, the moderator has a full set of responses available with which to challenge respondents

And what does it all mean?

This example merely scratches the surface of what RPD can offer. We believe this is real ‘next generation’ market research. For our work in antifungals, it produced thought-provoking results; physicians often contradicted their decision-making in open conversation, providing insight into how decisions are often unconsciously guided by herd behaviour but sometimes difficult to verbalise within discussion.

In our experience, the RPD has enabled us, and our clients, to see beyond the obvious, offering critical ‘actionable commercial insights’.

The author: Ben Jones is Senior Research Executive at Branding Science. He has a special interest in digital and how research can harness new technologies to generate deeper insights.

Rapid Physician Decision Making Task

”Instinct is intelligence incapable of self-consciousness.”
John Sterling, author

Mining gut instinct in pharmaceutical market research.......

In the world of healthcare, millions of life-changing decisions are made by physicians daily - which treatment pathway to follow, which drug to choose, when to switch and what to switch to? Guidelines may inform these choices but physicians, like all of us, are creatures of habit and make many of their decisions from a gut instinct, formed and reinforced by experience. As market researchers the real value of our work is in finding out the triggers for these ‘gut’ decisions – but how can we be sure we are getting their genuine decisions, and not what they feel is expected of them

This problem lay at the centre of a recent piece of research carried out by Branding Science in antifungal therapy. Here a variety of drug choices are available but decisions tend to be uniform and quickly made. We needed to determine the genuine ‘instinctive’ decision (or dare we say, prescribing habits) of physicians- but felt that traditional qualitative methods wouldn’t allow physicians the ‘time and distance’ to elicit this gut response. To do this we needed to get as near as possible to the real life prescribing environment- to get out of the interview room and into the operating room.

The Rapid Physician Decision (RPD) task.......

To combine the benefits of qualitative research with the statistical edge of quantitative research, we looked to the annals of cognitive psychology for inspiration- and the Rapid Physician Decision (RPD) task was born

This is essentially a computer-based task measuring instantaneous physician responses to a series of rapid fire questions- which are then promptly incorporated into qualitative research interviews. This allows us to contrast ‘gut’ vs. considered responses, and probe where inconsistencies arise- really getting ‘under the skin’ of the decision

RPD allows us to quantify gut instinct in situations where it really matters, like treatment decisions, message testing and logo/concept refinement. RPD is flexible enough to cater for all; whilst even technophobes can produce a basic ‘preference test’ within an hour, more confident technophiles can introduce ranking and routing elements and even measure speed of response to see just how ‘hard wired’ decision choices are. 

Please follow this blog, as in my next post, I will be showing you how it works !

The author: Ben Jones is Senior Research Executive at Branding Science. He has a special interest in digital and how research can harness new technologies to generate deeper insights.

Overwhelmed?!!!!

Ever get the feeling that you are gradually being buried under an avalanche of paper, files, to do lists, actions on your desk? Ever heard of the phrase ‘Can’t see the wood for the trees!’. Well hold on, take a few moments, take a deep breath and work the following plan to get yourself back on track.

You’ll be so glad you did….get yourself a pad and a pen and engage in the following.

Sort all items from your inbox and lying around on top of your desk into 4 piles and then with each piece of paper you handle, you make yourself a promise to only handle it once to:

a. DECIDE.. Action (what), Filing (where), Pending (when)

b. DO.. Quick and immediate action – do it now! i.e <30 seconds

c. DELEGATE.. as much as possible, perhaps one of the greatest skills

d. DISCARD/DELETE/DUMP or DITCH IT ‘feed’ your wastebasket at regular intervals, be ruthless or you’ll never have any space

This can be successfully maintained in 10 minute bursts, or for some of us, we perhaps need to schedule a time to really attack this and may need to diary an hour or so. Enjoy the feeling of a well managed desk. Use the technique regularly and you’ll be back in control before you know it.

The author: Sammy Lloyd is Head of Learning and Development at Branding Science. After a professional rugby player career, he was ideally placed to foster enthusiasm in the commercial world. He has now 24 years experience of coaching, mentoring and developing individuals and teams.