Models to Evaluate Patient Compliance

This chapter provides an overview of some of the most important behavioral models that have been used in medication compliance research and presented in the literature. In medication compliance behavior, the practitioner seeks to empower patients to achieve their treatment goals related to maintaining or improving their health. The path analysis found the Theory of Reasoned Action model sufficient to describe prescribed treatment for diet, smoking, activity, and stress, but was insufficient in its explanation of medication compliance. The theory of planned behavior has been utilized in several studies of medication compliance behavior. The social cognitive model has been utilized to assess medication compliance in a number of chronic diseases. The use of the determinants from these behavioral models can serve as an underpinning for sound medication compliance interventions and should allow researchers in this area to create programs that can be adapted and applied across a number of disease states.