Increasing Compliance to Medical Treatment Regimens

Abstract

Research articles evaluating the effectiveness of programs to increase compliance with medical treatment regimens were quantitatively integrated to assess the impact of these programs on the behavior ofpatients. A total of58 studies involving two or more groups with 133 measures of compliance were identified and analyzed. The mean effect size was .47, indicating that the typicalprogram participant complied better than 68% of the members of the control groups. The advantage of the program groups dropped as the amount of lifestyle changes required by the treatment regimen increased. Overall, the most successful interventions involved improving the facility providing care and helping patients to incorporate the treatment regimen into their daily routine. It is suggested that publishedevaluationsofcomplianceprograms would be more useful and more likely to contribute to an accumulation of knowledge if more careful descriptions of the interventions, including costs estimates, were included in reports of the program evaluations.