The Effect of Social Media Intervention as a Reminder and Educational Tool to Increase Treatment Adherence in Patients With Psoriasis: A Randomized Controlled Trial

ABSTRACT Background Despite years of symptomatic disease control and treatment, psoriasis patients lack adequate understanding of their disease, its treatment, and how to manage its relapsing and remitting course. Given its high disease burden, practical solutions that support patient education and self‐management are important public health strategies to address this phenomenon. Objectives This study evaluated whether educational messages and treatment reminders sent through Facebook can improve disease knowledge and treatment adherence in patients with psoriasis. Methods This was a randomized, controlled, observer‐blinded, three‐arm, parallel clinical trial conducted from February to April 2023. Patients with psoriasis assigned to intervention received similar messages privately containing treatment reminders and educational messages for 12 weeks in alternating order of reminder‐education‐reminder, depending on the assigned frequency of intervention (once‐a‐week or three times‐a‐week). Patients in the control group only attended the clinic visits. The participants were assessed in two study visits: one at the beginning and one at the end of the twelfth week. Results A total of 159 psoriasis patients were included in the analysis. Treatment adherence among those who received the intervention significantly improved as compared to control, with better results in those who received more frequent interventions ( p = 0.037). Similar results were also seen in terms of physician‐evaluated clinical outcomes and patient‐reported quality of life, as those who received more frequent interventions reported better outcomes ( p < 0.001). Knowledge scores likewise improved across all groups at the end of study, with everyone in the intervention group reporting complete satisfaction regardless of the frequency of intervention. Conclusions This study determined that educational messages and treatment reminders sent through Facebook were able to improve disease knowledge and treatment adherence among patients with psoriasis. This study illustrates the potential of social media interventions as a low‐cost, scalable public health strategy to empower patients in a resource‐constrained setting such as the Philippines.