When it comes to adherence, patients just wanna to have fun
*Di Stafford argues that pharma should **stop nagging and start nudging patients into better compliance*
By on Nov 26, 2010Di Stafford argues that pharma should stop nagging and start nudging patients into better compliance
If theres one thing pharma doesnt do very well its fun.
Grounded in science, fact, and evidence, the industry tends to take itself very seriously.
Probably rightly soafter all, health is a serious matter, and given that so many pharma products are concerned with prolonging life, or eliminating pain and suffering, there may not seem to be much to laugh about.
Theres a fear of being seen to trivialize something so important.
However, this wholehearted worthiness can be a problem when the industry is trying to engage with patients in a fast moving, loud, and colorful social media age.
The messages we are trying to get across compete with thousands of other promotional messages, many of them much more fun, interesting, and motivating than ours.
Regarding medicine-taking, Ive lost track of the number of times pharma folk have told me they simply cant understand why patients just dont take their tablets properly, especially when the consequences can be so obviously serious, such as with anti-rejection drugs following transplant surgery, for example.
But let me ask you this, do you eat five portions of fruit and vegetables daily and engage in at least 30 minutes of cardiovascular exercise several times a week?
No, I thought not.
Make it a game
The problem is, we focus too much on getting patients to do what we want them to do as opposed to getting them to do what they want to do.
What if we could make these one and the same thing?
Any parent of a school age child will recognize the importance of this approach.
My own son hated learning interval recognition for his music exams until we found The Justin Guitar Ear Trainer; worth a look if you have musical children or are having a 40+ mid-life crisis and now want to learn to play the guitar.
Suddenly, a chore became a game, with the chance to complete a personal challenge, the incentive of watching your scores improve, and the reward of seeing your ranking versus otherssimple, but remarkably effective.
Innovative healthcare companies recognize the success of this approach for products targeted at todays gaming generation.
Re-Mission is a video game developed specifically for adolescents and young adults with cancer, which has been shown to play a positive role in helping them understand and fight their disease and improve adherence.
Bayers DIDGET blood glucose monitoring system encourages consistent testing by rewarding children with games they can play on their Nintendo DS.
Make it fun
The success of such games with children might seem obvious, but in reality adults respond to fun rewards, toothe fanfare of a new high score, the excitement of the chance to win with a lotto card.
Experts in behavioral change recognize the potential of this approach, and its the concept on which Volkswagens much quoted Fun Theory Awards were based: The thought that something as simple as fun is the easiest way to change peoples behavior for the better.
Suggestions included a staircase turned into a piano to encourage people to use it rather than the elevator, and bottle banks that reward recyclers with points and music.
A similar approach is also being adopted by behavioral economists and public health providers who are now avidly following the principles of nudge theory, as espoused by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein in their book Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness.
Their basic argument is that institutions, including governments, should become much more user-friendly by enlisting the science of choice to make life easier for people and by gentling nudging them in directions that will make their lives betterlike taking their medication regularly, perhaps?
The nudge approach first became popular in the US with the Obama administration but has now also taken hold in the UK, with Thaler being invited to advise Camerons coalition governments behavioral insight team.
Meanwhile, the fun theory award-winning ideaa speed camera lotteryhas been tested in Sweden with seemingly excellent results.
The camera captures the registration numbers of the people who keep to the speed limit, and these are entered into a lottery.
Winners are rewarded with cash prizes and notified by post, and the prizes are subsidized by the people who were caught speeding by the camera and fined.
Fun theory says that on the days of camera operation, the average speed fell from 32 km/hour to 25 km/hour.
So isnt it about time pharma embraced the fun approach in our dealings with patients?
Should we stop nagging and start nudging?
Perhaps we need our own industry version of the fun theory to promote and celebrate excellent compliance initiatives that nudge patients into actually wanting to take their medicines regularly.
What would we call itthe pharm phun lab, perhaps?
Di Stafford is Director of The Patient Practice, a health-marketing consultancy. She specializes in health communication, patient compliance, and health-related behaviour change.