Health Coaching as a Tool for Improving Medication Adherence in Adult Patients With Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) including Crohn's disease (CD) and Ulcerative colitis (UC) is a chronic idiopathic intestinal disorder involving the interplay of environmental, immunomodulatory and genetic causative factors. Treatment for IBD is multimodal and includes lifestyle modification, chronic pharmacotherapy and surgery. Given the need for chronic pharmacotherapy, medication adherence is a crucial therapeutic goal in the management of IBD. In fact, medication non-adherence has been associated with greater risk of relapse and increased healthcare costs. In a previous study, the investigators found clinically identifiable risk factors for non-adherence for self-injectable biologic medications in a population with moderate to severe CD. These risk factors included smoking, prior biologic use, psychiatric history, and current narcotic use. The primary objective of this study is to use a multidisciplinary team approach that implements a targeted coaching intervention to promote behavioral change and improve medication adherence in adult patients with IBD who are at high risk of non-adherence.