Workshop 6: Compliance factors

Noncompliance with medications can take the form of underusage, overusage, or erratic usage. Monitoring by pill counts, psychological testing, and serum/salivary/urine drug levels may not accurately identify noncompliers and thereby leads to misclassification of types of noncompliance. Age, sex, race, economic status, appointment keeping, educational level, marital status, or religious preference do not predict noncompliance. A positive connection has been made between compliance and symptom perception, drug effects, and the type of treatment regimen. Patient compliance can be enhanced by clear instructions to the patient, cues and reminders, social support, rewards, and reinforcement. Compliance in children can further be enhanced by participation in self-management programs such as Asthma Care Training tor Kids. Maintaining high compliance is essential to assure the success of a drug trial and the validity of its outcome.