Synonyms
Definition
Noncompliance with treatment, also called nonadherence, describes patients who do not follow treatment recommendations. Noncompliance can range from incorrectly taking medication, failure to follow lifestyle recommendation, or failing to attend treatment appointments (DiMatteo, Lepper, & Croghan, 2000). Noncompliance, generally, has a negative effect on treatment outcome (DiMatteo et al., 2000).
Current Knowledge
Self-reported and objective measures of noncompliance are often discrepant. For example, Nicholl (2002) refers to a study that showed that 30% of patients who reported compliance were objectively assessed as noncompliant, 20% admitted their lack of compliance, and nearly 50% reported compliance and were found to be compliant. Some conditions, such as epilepsy, allow objective measures of noncompliance. In epilepsy, a “variance of greater than 20% in the drug level drawn at the same time after the last dose on different days” yields more...
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References and Readings
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Ewigman, N. (2011). Noncompliance with Treatment. In: Kreutzer, J.S., DeLuca, J., Caplan, B. (eds) Encyclopedia of Clinical Neuropsychology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-79948-3_2059
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-79948-3_2059
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