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Background: Poor adherence habits are key contributors to nonadherence but there are few clinically feasible methods for evaluating adherence habits, particularly for youths with chronic kidney disease (CKD). This study investigated how participants' qualitative responses to three interview questions about adherence habits mapped to primary principles of habit formation and objectively measured medication adherence in youths with CKD. Methods: Participants (ages 11–21 years) were recruited from a pediatric nephrology clinic as part of a larger study. Participants' daily objective antihypertensive medication adherence was measured with an electronic pill bottle over a 4-week baseline period. Qualitative interviews about adherence habits and routines were conducted with a subset of participants (N = 18). Results: Clear qualitative differences emerged in how participants with high-medium adherence (80–100%) discussed adherence habits compared to participants with low adherence (0–79%). Participants with high-medium adherence discussed situational cues for taking medicine, including locations that cue adherence, step-by-step events leading up to taking medicine, and people who cue adherence. Participants with high-medium adherence regularly described taking medicine as "automatic," "second nature," and a "habit." Participants with low adherence rarely discussed these habit features nor did they explicitly acknowledge currently missing doses. Participants with low adherence tended to discuss challenges with organization and routines for taking medicine. Conclusions: Evaluating patient responses to questions about adherence habits may uncover challenges with adherence habit formation, provide direction for habit-strengthening intervention focused on developing automatic cues for taking medication, and support adherence successes for youths with CKD. Clinical trial registration number: NCT03651596. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Medical provider assessment of nonadherence is known to be inaccurate. Researchers have suggested using a multimethod assessment approach; however, no study has demonstrated how to integrate different measures to improve accuracy. This study aimed to determine if using additional measures improves the accurate identification of nonadherence beyond provider assessment alone.Methods: Eighty-seven adolescents and young adults (AYAs), age 11-19 years, with chronic kidney disease (CKD) [stage 1-5/end-stage renal disease (ESRD)] and prescribed antihypertensive medication, their caregivers, and 17 medical providers participated in the multisite study. Five adherence measures were obtained: provider report, AYA report, caregiver report, electronic medication monitoring (MEMS), and pharmacy refill data [medication possession ratio (MPR)]. Concordance was calculated using kappa statistic. Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive power, and negative predictive power were calculated using MEMS as the criterion for measuring adherence.Results: There was poor to fair concordance (kappas = 0.12-0.54), with 35-61% of AYAs classified as nonadherent depending on the measure. While both providers and MEMS classified 35% of the AYAs as nonadherent, sensitivity (0.57) and specificity (0.77) demonstrated poor agreement between the two measures on identifying which AYAs were nonadherent. Combining provider report of nonadherence and MPR < 75% resulted in the highest sensitivity for identifying nonadherence (0.90) and negative predictive power (0.88).Conclusions: Nonadherence is prevalent in AYAs with CKD. Providers inaccurately identify nonadherence, leading to missed opportunities to intervene. Our study demonstrates the benefit to utilizing a multimethod approach to identify nonadherence in patients with chronic disease, an essential first step to reduce nonadherence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To investigate longitudinal associations of health beliefs, which included self-efficacy, outcome expectancies, and perceived barriers, and demographic risk factors (i.e., age, gender, race, and family income) with antihypertensive medication adherence in adolescents with chronic kidney disease (CKD) over 24 months.Method: The sample included 114 adolescents (M age = 15.03 years, SD = 2.44) diagnosed with CKD. Adolescents reported their self-efficacy for taking medications, medication outcome expectancies, and barriers to adherence at baseline and 12 and 24 months after baseline. Antihypertensive medication adherence was assessed via electronic monitoring for 2 weeks at baseline and 6, 12, 18, and 24 months after baseline.Results: Adherence increased and then decreased over the 2-year study period (inverted U-shape). Self-efficacy, outcome expectancies, and barriers did not change over time. Older adolescent age, female gender, African American race, <$50,000 annual family income, and public health insurance were associated with lower adherence. However, family income was the primary demographic risk factor that predicted adherence over time (≥$50,000 annual family income was longitudinally associated with higher adherence). Higher self-efficacy and more positive and less negative outcome expectancies across time were also associated with higher antihypertensive medication adherence across time.Conclusions: Clinical interventions should be developed to target medication self-efficacy and outcome expectancies to improve long-term antihypertensive medication adherence in adolescents with CKD. Family income may be considered when conceptualizing contextual factors that likely contribute to adolescents' consistent challenges with medication adherence over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]