Sunil Kripalani|Jessica Risser|Margaret E. Gatti|Terry A. Jacobson
Development and Evaluation of the Adherence to Refills and Medications Scale (ARMS) among Low-Literacy Patients with Chronic Disease
Vanderbilt University
patient literacy affects many aspects medication use may influence measurement adherence aim study design evaluate medication adherence scale suitable use across levels patient literacythe adherence refills medications scale arms developed pilot tested administered 435 patients coronary heart disease innercity primary care clinic psychometric evaluation performed overall literacy level included assessment internal consistency testretest reliability factor analysis criterionrelated validity evaluated comparing scores moriskys selfreported measure adherence medication refill adherence blood pressure measurements lexile analysis performed assess reading difficulty instrumentthe final 12item scale high internal consistency overall cronbachs alpha 0814 among patients inadequate alpha 0792 marginaladequate literacy skills alpha 0828 factor analysis yielded two subscales pertained taking medications prescribed refilling medications schedule arms correlated significantly morisky adherence scale spearmans rho 0651 p 001 correlated strongly measures refill adherence morisky scale patients low arms scores indicated better adherence significantly likely controlled diastolic blood pressure p 005 tended better systolic blood pressure control lexile analysis demonstrated instrument favorable reading difficulty level eight gradethe arms valid reliable medication adherence scale used chronic disease population good performance characteristics even among lowliteracy patients