Study design, sampling and data collection
death, cognitive diseases, diseases like cancer, insulin-dependent diabetic, COPD, diabetes
CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE, CHRONIC DISEASES, COPD, HYPERTENSION, DIABETES
A randomized controlled trial study was conducted in April-June 2022. The research population consisted of older adults presenting to a hospital in Tehran, Iran. This hospital is a prominent health center for the geriatric population and has geriatric-specific clinics and services specializing in both acute and chronic diseases. This hospital welcomes clients for routine and periodic health checkups based on their health needs and physician’s order in all days of week.The inclusion criteria were age above 60 years, daily intake of more than 5 types of drugs, ability to read and write based on being able to fill out necessary forms in clinic, ability to communicate with, having smartphone ownership based on their self-report and a positive history of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, hypertension, or COPD. The exclusion criteria were a history of cognitive diseases, use of expensive and hard-to-find drugs, a positive history of special hard-to-treat diseases like cancer, use of injection drugs (e.g., insulin-dependent diabetic patients were excluded), not receiving clinic follow-up, unwillingness to participate in the study, and death. To calculate the sample size, for an intervention that could reduce poor adherence by 20% with a confidence interval of 95% and power of 80%, 86 participants were needed in each group [
Sample size calculation formulaRecruitment process occurred among inpatient and outpatient clients referring to hospital. The researcher was present in hospital reception to assess the eligible elderly based on inclusion and exclusion criteria checklist. Among these, two hundred and fourteen older adults who were compatible with inclusion and exclusion criteria were selected with simple random method. Finally, 192 older adults volunteer to participate in this study were assigned to case and control groups using block randomization method with a block size of four.The allocation sequence was generated using This form was developed for this study and in order to assess the face and content validity of this case report form, a panel of six geriatric experts was asked to rate the relevancy, clarity, simplicity, and necessity of each question using Likert scale. All members of the panel had relevant knowledge in either usability evaluations or elderly needs. Subsequently, the Content Validity Ratio (CVR) and Content Validity Index (CVI) were calculated according to previous studies. Content validity was considered to be acceptable when CVI and CVR were at least 0.78. In order to confirm the reliability of the questionnaire, two methods of internal reliability and test-retest reliability were used. In this sense, Cronbach’s alpha was calculated as the measure of internal reliability. Cronbach’s alpha equal to and above 0.7 was considered as the minimum acceptable value. To measure the test-retest, a total of 20 older adults was asked to score the questionnaire twice with a two-week interval. Then, the Pearson correlation coefficient was calculated between the two sets of scores.