ABSTRACT
The general question of why people do or do not cooperate when in a treatment program is an important one for various types of health care professionals. This chapter addresses several concerns that are integrally related to understanding this problem and to trying to resolve it. It describes the approaches that have been developed by researchers to explain why patients vary in their cooperation with treatment regimens. The chapter discusses the formation of patient attitudes toward medical facilities and personnel. Psychologists naturally have tried to explain individual differences in compliance behavior within the context of an accepted psychological theory. Elements of the health belief model that are used to study compliance include some elements from the original model as well as some new ones. Compliance has been found to be consistently related to cognitive factors, perceived threat of the condition, and beliefs about the benefits and costs of the treatment.
