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Purpose: To describe nurses' support interventions for medication adherence, and patients' experiences and desired improvements with this care., Patients and Methods: A two-phase study was performed, including an analysis of questionnaire data and conducted interviews with members of the care panel of the Netherlands Patients Federation. The questionnaire assessed 14 types of interventions, satisfaction (score 0-10) with received interventions, needs, experiences, and desired improvements in nurses' support. Interviews further explored experiences and improvements. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and a thematic analysis approach., Results: Fifty-nine participants completed the questionnaire, and 14 of the 59 participants were interviewed. The satisfaction score for interventions was 7.9 (IQR 7-9). The most common interventions were: "noticing when I don't take medication as prescribed" (n = 35), "helping me to find solutions to overcome problems with using medications" (n = 32), "helping me with taking medication" (n = 32), and "explaining the importance of taking medication at the right moment" (n = 32). Fifteen participants missed ≥1 of the 14 interventions. Most mentioned the following: "regularly asking about potential problems with medication use" (33%), "regularly discussing whether using medication is going well" (29%), and "explaining the importance of taking medication at the right moment" (27%). Twenty-two participants experienced the following as positive: improved self-management of adequate medication taking, a professional patient-nurse relationship to discuss adherence problems, and nurses' proactive attitude to arrange practical support for medication use. Thirteen patients experienced the following as negative: insufficient timing of home visits, rushed appearance of nurses, and insufficient expertise about side effects and taking medication. Suggested improvements included performing home visits on time, more time for providing support in medication use, and more expertise about side effects and administering medication., Conclusion: Overall, participants were satisfied, and few participants wanted more interventions. Nurses' support improved participants' self-management of medication taking and enabled patients to discuss their adherence problems. Adequately timed home visits, more time for support, and accurate medication-related knowledge are desired., Competing Interests: Dr Marcia Vervloet reports grants from AbbVie, grants from Pfizer, grants from Teva, grants from AstraZeneca, outside the submitted work. Dr Marjorie Nelissen-Vrancken reports grants from ZonMw, during the conduct of the study. The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest., (© 2021 Dijkstra et al.)

Background: Compared to men, women have lower treatment rates for cardiovascular disease (CVD), are at higher risk for medication non-adherence and have different reasons for being non-adherent. The aim of this study was to synthesize and evaluate gender-specific adherence-promoting interventions for cardiovascular medication and gender-specific effects of gender-neutral interventions., Methods: A systematic literature search was performed in PubMed, Embase, PsycINFO, CINAHL and Cochrane Library from January 2007 to October 2019. Intervention studies (with control group) aimed at improving cardiovascular medication adherence with minimally 14 weeks follow-up were included. Two reviewers independently screened titles and abstracts. Full text was obtained for selected abstracts and screened for final inclusion. Data extraction included gender-specific targeting or analysis., Results: The search identified 6502 citations. After screening title and abstract, full text was obtained from 127 potentially eligible articles. Ultimately, 11 articles were included that analyzed gender differences in gender-neutral interventions. Two reported a gender-specific intervention effect. Using an electronic reminder device, one study increased statin adherence in women. The other found a larger increase in adherence to CVD medication following telephone counseling for men than women. Nine studies did not identify a gender-specific effect., Conclusion: Despite differences in levels of and reasons for non-adherence, most studies addressing adherence did not analyze potential differences in effect by gender. Moreover, none of the identified studies used gender-specific adherence promoting interventions. Increasing awareness about gender differences in adherence might lead to better tailoring of interventions to gender-specific needs and better results in improving adherence., Competing Interests: Dr Marcia Vervloet reports grants from the Netherlands Heart Foundation, during the conduct of the study; grants from AbbVie and Pfizer, outside the submitted work. Dr Joke Korevaar and Dr Chantal Leemrijse report grants from the Netherlands Heart Foundation, during the conduct of the study. Dr. John Paget reports grants from Foundation for Influenza Epidemiology, grants from World Health Organization, grants from Sanofi Pasteur,  outside the submitted work. Dr Leah Zullig reports grants from Proteus Digital Health, grants from the PhRMA Foundation, consulting for Novartis, outside the submitted work. Professor Liset van Dijk reports grants from the Netherlands Heart Foundation, during the conduct of the study; grants from Abbvie, grants from Pfizer, outside the submitted work. The authors report no other potential conflicts of interest for this work., (© 2020 Vervloet et al.)