Medical Compliance Attitudes and Patterns of Behaviour in Portugal
Medical Compliance Attitudes and Patterns of Behaviour in Portugal
Total or partial lack of compliance regarding medical prescriptions and other recommendations concerning patient's behaviour may have several causes and take different manifestations, but it will always raise a set of combined or alternative problems which are important to avoid. For the sick person, lack of compliance will, in principle, have an unfavourable impact on the course of the disease, frequently delaying healing and/or causing the recurrence of symptoms. For health professionals, especially if lack of compliance is kept hidden from them, may make diagnostics more difficult and/or raise doubts about the efficacy of the prescribed treatments; such patient's behaviour may have also a negative impact of the trust relationship between doctors and patients; indeed, trust and good communication between health professionals and patients are, according to the literature, among the most important factors for adequate therapeutic compliance from the latter. Finally, lack of compliance has consequences for the increased use of health services, generating sometimes significant waste for the NHS and, eventually, for the national economy.
We need therefore to identify the causes of the phenomenon as well as a characterization of attitudes and behaviour regarding medical compliance and use of medicines, in order to establish a typology of the Portuguese population. This is all the more necessary that it is well known that medical compliance cannot be addressed in a direct manner since respondents tend to answer according to the social norm that «medicines must be taken exactly as the doctor prescribed». As a result, de degree of compliance declared by respondents is usually much higher than indirect empirical research shows. Thus, the study of effective compliance must be approached in a contextual and relational manner, using qualitative and quantitative methodologies as well as sophisticated conceptual instruments, namely from the social-psychology of illness. The project is financed by the Portuguese Association of the Pharmaceutical Industry-APIFARMA.
Total or partial lack of compliance regarding medical prescriptions and other recommendations concerning patient's behaviour may have several causes and take different manifestations, but it will always raise a set of combined or alternative problems which are important to avoid. For the sick person, lack of compliance will, in principle, have an unfavourable impact on the course of the disease, frequently delaying healing and/or causing the recurrence of symptoms. For health professionals, especially if lack of compliance is kept hidden from them, may make diagnostics more difficult and/or raise doubts about the efficacy of the prescribed treatments; such patient's behaviour may have also a negative impact of the trust relationship between doctors and patients; indeed, trust and good communication between health professionals and patients are, according to the literature, among the most important factors for adequate therapeutic compliance from the latter. Finally, lack of compliance has consequences for the increased use of health services, generating sometimes significant waste for the NHS and, eventually, for the national economy.
We need therefore to identify the causes of the phenomenon as well as a characterization of attitudes and behaviour regarding medical compliance and use of medicines, in order to establish a typology of the Portuguese population. This is all the more necessary that it is well known that medical compliance cannot be addressed in a direct manner since respondents tend to answer according to the social norm that «medicines must be taken exactly as the doctor prescribed». As a result, de degree of compliance declared by respondents is usually much higher than indirect empirical research shows. Thus, the study of effective compliance must be approached in a contextual and relational manner, using qualitative and quantitative methodologies as well as sophisticated conceptual instruments, namely from the social-psychology of illness. The project is financed by the Portuguese Association of the Pharmaceutical Industry-APIFARMA.
