Abstract
Objective: The objective of this study was to estimate patient compliance with oral and vaginal metronidazole treatment of bacterial vaginosis using personal digital assistants (PDAs) and paper diaries. Goal: The goal of this study was to assess a novel compliance documentation approach. Study: After each dose of intravaginal or oral metronidazole, 71 subjects recorded the time on a paper diary and answered questions on a PDA. All PDA entries were unknowingly time-date-stamped. Subjects returned for 2- and 6-week posttreatment examinations. Compliance was calculated using a repeated-measures multivariate analysis of variance (ANOVA). Results: Mean patient compliance rates within the oral metronidazole group were greater with the paper diary compared with the PDA (68.3% and 50.0%, respectively, P = 0.001). The observed rate of compliance agreement for PDA versus paper diary was 69.0% (kappa = 0.4). The majority of noncompliant subjects reported they were compliant with the PDA and paper diary. Conclusions: PDAs could more accurately document true compliance rates and could be reasonable instruments to assess compliance in intravaginal antimicrobial drug or contraceptive trials.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 488-491 |
Number of pages | 4 |
Journal | Sexually Transmitted Diseases |
Volume | 31 |
Issue number | 8 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Aug 1 2004 |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Dermatology
- Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health
- Microbiology (medical)
- Infectious Diseases