There is a wealth of empirical data on predicting patient adherence to treatment recommendations based on subjective and objective assessments of health status and disease severity. This work can be summarised by a meta-analysis. This paper searched the literature (1948-2005), resulting in 116 articles. Adherence to recommendations is significantly positively correlated with patients' beliefs about the severity of the disease to be prevented or treated ('disease risk'). Better patient adherence is associated with objectively worse health status only in patients with conditions of lesser severity (according to the disease severity rating scale). Among more severe conditions, worse adherence to recommendations is associated with objectively worse health status. Similar patterns exist when health status is assessed by patients themselves and by parents in paediatric samples. The results suggest that the objective severity of patients' conditions and their awareness of this severity predicts adherence. Patients who are most severely ill with serious illnesses may be most at risk of non-adherence to treatment recommendations. The findings have the potential to increase providers' awareness of the potential for patient non-adherence and to improve the targeting of health messages and treatment advice by providers.
Health beliefs, disease severity, and patient adherence: a meta-analysis
19 December 2022