Patient compliance: the effect of the doctor as a therapeutic agent.

This paper is a review of the available literature on patient complicance with medical regimens. An effort is made to focus on those features or characteristics associated with compliance or noncompliance that are clinically relevant for the practicing physician. These include the intelligence of the patient, the patient's knowledge of his disease, the complexity of the medical regimen, the influence of the family, the health belief model, and the doctor-patient relationship. From this review of research data, 12 concrete suggestions are presented for the purpose of enhancing patient compliance and enabling the doctor himself to be more effective as a therapeutic agent.