Our latest article ‘How Behavioural Science can make desired new health behaviour a little more sticky’, published in WARC magazine, focuses on helping patients maintain adherence to a new health habit and medication regime by helping them make a plan.
Shockingly, only 50% of type 2 diabetes patients stick to their prescription, resulting in extra direct and indirect costs!
Making a plan - known as implementation intentions in behavioural science - identifies the ‘where’, ‘when’ and ‘how‘, which is one of the most effective evidence-based strategies in Behavioural Science. In this health context, helping patients make a plan, getting the plan kick-started and maintaining adherence to that new health habit or medication regime offers the needed solution.
Our article also discusses:
- Some of the barriers that even the most well-intended patients experience, such as how daily life can get in the way, undesirable side effects from the medication and the lack of immediate positive feedback.
- A pilot study on type 2 diabetes patients which draws on the concept of making a plan and leverages a combination of commitment devices to increase adherence.
This article powerfully demonstrates how Behavioural Science can help us identify barriers to habit maintenance and then turn it around to find that an implementation action plan can make the desired habit stick!
You can read our article here.