ABSTRACT
Patient compliance is crucial to successful therapy. Patients feel the pharmacist should share in the physician's responsibility for the appropriateness of the prescription medication and they rely on the pharmacist for the proper directions for medication use. In the emphasis on the prescriber in the pharmaceutical industry it is easy to lose track of the importance of the patient. The consumer chooses his physician, his pharmacist and, although his influence may be indirect, determines the components of total health care. In the area of self-medication, of course, the consumer's choice becomes much more important. Recent reviews of studies of compliance have shown little relationship between compliance and patient income, although cost of therapy is occasionally a factor. Once the initial cost is considered, however, there may be a wide variation in what it costs the patient to use the drug each day. Prescriptions also serve as a convenient means of drug sampling and as a method of trying new drugs.
