The role of health beliefs in compliance with physician advice to quit smoking.

The Health Belief Model has been proposed to account for patient compliance with therapeutic regimens. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the utility of this theoretical formulation in accounting for compliance with physician advice to quit smoking among patients with pulmonary disease. Three hypotheses were examined: (1) probability of cessation of smoking is positively related to strength of Health Beliefs; (2) Health Beliefs can be used to explain relationships observed between other variables and compliance; (3) reason for smoking accounts for discrepancies between Health Beliefs and compliance. Results from a prospective study of 308 patients supported hypothesis 3, partially supported hypothesis 1, and did not support hypothesis 2. It was concluded that this conceptual formulation is useful in this context, but that explanations based on arousal level may be more appropriate.