Patient factors and compliance with asthma therapy

Compliance by patients to prescribed treatment regimens can be considered a s the interface between effective therapy and effective disease management. Compliance can be affected by the nature of the relationship between the p ractitioner and the patient, and their attitudes towards each other. It has also been suggested that practitioner behaviour can influence patient beha viour and hearth status. However, each individual patient is influenced in his or her attitudes, and reactions to disease and its management, by a wid e variety of patient-related factors. These include psychological Variables such as mood, beliefs, and the knowledge, motivation and ability of the pa tient. Social factors may also play a role: these include age, marital and socioeconomic status and level of education. Results from a range of studie s in patients with pulmonary or other diseases show that the psychosocial d eterminants of compliance are only poorly understood, and suggest that comp liance cannot be predicted from patients' health status and that social fac tors are weak indicators only. Furthermore, it appears from available data that patients' beliefs about health issues are not as useful as indicators of likely compliance as was previously believed. (C) 1999 HARCOURT PUBLISHE RS LTD.