The Internet Intervention Patient Adherence Scale for Guided Internet-Delivered Behavioral Interventions: Development and Psychometric Evaluation

Background: Patient adherence is defined as the extent to which a patient complies with medical or health advice. At present, there is a lack of reliable and valid measures specifically designed to measure adherence to internet-delivered behavioral interventions.

Objective: The objective of this study was to develop and psychometrically evaluate a novel measure of adherence to guided internet-delivered behavioral interventions.

Methods: In collaboration with experienced clinicians and researchers in the field, a 5-item, clinician-rated internet intervention Patient Adherence Scale (iiPAS) was developed. The initial scale was tested in a sample of children and adolescents (N=50) participating in internet-delivered cognitive behavioral therapy (ICBT) studies. A revised version of the iiPAS was then administered to a larger sample of children and adolescents (N=148) with various behavioral problems participating in ICBT trials. The scale was evaluated according to a classical test theory framework.

Results: The iiPAS demonstrated excellent internal consistency. Factor analyses revealed one underlying factor, explaining about 80% of the variance, suggesting that the scale captures a homogeneous adherence construct. The iiPAS was strongly associated with objective measures of patient activity in ICBT (number of logins, number of written characters, and completed modules). Furthermore, mid- and posttreatment ratings of the iiPAS were significantly correlated with treatment outcomes. By contrast, objective measures of patient activity in the Web-based platform did not correlate with treatment outcomes.

Conclusions: The iiPAS could be a useful tool to measure adherence in a broad range of internet-delivered behavioral interventions.