Back to Journals » Therapeutics and Clinical Risk Management » Volume 4 » Issue 1

Factors affecting therapeutic compliance: A review from the patient’s perspective

Authors Jin J, Sklar GE, Oh VMS, Li SC

Published 8 February 2008 Volume 2008:4(1) Pages 269—286

DOI https://doi.org/10.2147/TCRM.S1458



Jing Jin1, Grant Edward Sklar1, Vernon Min Sen Oh2, Shu Chuen Li3

1Department of Pharmacy, National University of Singapore, Republic of Singapore; 2Department of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Republic of Singapore; 3Discipline of Pharmacy and Experimental Pharmacology, School of Biomedical Sciences, University of Newcastle, Callaghan, Australia

Objective: To explore and evaluate the most common factors causing therapeutic noncompliance.

Methods: A qualitative review was undertaken by a literature search of the Medline database from 1970 to 2005 to identify studies evaluating the factors contributing to therapeutic non-compliance.

Results: A total of 102 articles was retrieved and used in the review from the 2095 articles identified by the literature review process. From the literature review, it would appear that the definition of therapeutic compliance is adequately resolved. The preliminary evaluation revealed a number of factors that contributed to therapeutic non-compliance. These factors could be categorized to patient-centered factors, therapy-related factors, social and economic factors, healthcare system factors, and disease factors. For some of these factors, the impact on compliance was not unequivocal, but for other factors, the impact was inconsistent and contradictory.

Conclusion: There are numerous studies on therapeutic noncompliance over the years. The factors related to compliance may be better categorized as “soft” and “hard” factors as the approach in countering their effects may differ. The review also highlights that the interaction of the various factors has not been studied systematically. Future studies need to address this interaction issue, as this may be crucial to reducing the level of non-compliance in general, and to enhancing the possibility of achieving the desired healthcare outcomes.

Keywords: patient compliance, adherence, factors

Creative Commons License © 2008 The Author(s). This work is published and licensed by Dove Medical Press Limited. The full terms of this license are available at https://www.dovepress.com/terms.php and incorporate the Creative Commons Attribution - Non Commercial (unported, v3.0) License. By accessing the work you hereby accept the Terms. Non-commercial uses of the work are permitted without any further permission from Dove Medical Press Limited, provided the work is properly attributed. For permission for commercial use of this work, please see paragraphs 4.2 and 5 of our Terms.