Assessment of compliance-related attitudes in psychiatry. A comparison of two questionnaires based on the Health Belief Model.

In a study of 118 psychiatric patients two questionnaires of similar content that are supposed to predict compliance with pharmacotherapy in psychiatry were examined, "COSS" and "KK-Skala". These questionnaires assess the patient's attitudes towards his illness, pharmacotherapy, and the physician. Patient compliance was judged by the treating physicians. The results of discriminant analyses indicated that about two thirds of the patients were correctly classified into "compliant" and "moderately or not compliant" (as judged by the physicians) by means of COSS and KK-Skala, respectively. It is a matter for further research whether these results reflect in fact moderate associations between patient attitudes and compliant behavior or are due to limitations of the questionnaires and of the study design.