ABSTRACT
Health compliance research has been a field of interest for the past two decades. A major focus of the investigations carried out was on adults in connection with treatment received for heart disease (Haynes, Taylor, & Sackett, 1979). The classic definition of compliance was composed by Haynes (1979). He said that compliance reflects “the extent to which a person’s behavior coincides with medical or health advice” (pp. 1-2). Ewart (this volume) points out, however, that compliance has at least three meanings. These are (a) the behavior(s) that is the goal of intervention, (b) a process through which behavior is changed, and (c) a behavioral product of the context in which behavioral change processes operate. This view provides a more complex picture of compliance in comparison with the definition articulated earlier by Haynes. A most recent conceptualization of compliance indicates that it is a multidimensional construct (see Johnson, this volume). This recognition has important implications for the measurement of compliance.
