Monitoring medication compliance: description of a new device.

Patients' noncompliance with medication regimens is a common explanation for the failure of outpatient therapy. Advances in understanding medication noncompliance and approaches to dealing with the problem have been considerably hindered because no satisfactory technique for measuring medication compliance exists. This report describes a new method for electronically monitoring compliance involving tablet medications through the use of a device that automatically records the date and time medication is removed. Data are rapidly recoverable from the monitor and can be presented in two easily interpreted formats. Simple to use, reliable, accurate, relatively small, and inexpensive, the monitor should be useful in clinical drug trials, compliance research, and clinical medicine.