Compliance and adherence by psychic patients
A majority of psychic diseases are long-lasting, some of them even lifelong, and most patients need a longterm psychopharmacotherapy. Patients are usually unwilling to take medications while an irregular treatment or disruption of the treatment quickly results in worsening of the condition or its recurrence. Therefore it is important to establish with these patients the best possible relationship and therapeutical alliance, which also means compliance and adherence. The term “compliance” means acceptance of the therapist’s opinion on the importance of regular medication taking in the dose determined by the therapist, and the term “adherence” means a higher level of compliance, which besides accepting the therapist’s recommendation includes the understanding of the need for regularity in taking psychopharmacotics, i.e. a proactive patient’s approach to the therapy. To achieve this objective it is important to have good knowledge of the characteristics of the patient’s personality, to choose an optimum medication and to constantly point out the importance of the regular medication taking
Key words:
psychic patient, therapy acceptance, compliance, adherence, psychoparmacotherapy, therapeutical efficacy
