Adherence therapy concept evolution

• Autor(a) principal: Cruz, Rui Santos
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: https://doi.org/10.25758/set.2041
• topic: Adesão à terapêutica; Conceito de adesão; Comportamentos de adesão; Adesão à medicação; Doença crónica; Adherence to therapy; Concept of adherence; Adherence behavior; Medication compliance; Chronic illness

Adherence to the therapeutic regimen has always been a controversial subject and a motive of interest for many researchers. The concept of adherence to therapy has varied over time, somewhat in accordance with the different perspectives of the authors, but specifically related to pharmacological therapy, which is understood as the use of the prescribed drugs, scrupulously respecting the schedules, the dose, and the time of treatment. More generally, adherence to therapy is understood as the degree to which a person's behavior, related not only to medication administration but also to following a diet or changing lifestyle, matches the recommendations of the doctor or other health professional. Regarding the concepts of adherence to therapy, there has been an evolution in the development model based on the three concepts: compliance, adherence, and maintenance. The term compliance can be understood as a situation of obedience, in which the patient has a passive role. In turn, the term adherence translates to an informed choice of the patient to adopt or not the recommendation given, in this case, we are facing a patient with an active role, who participates and assumes responsibility for their treatment. With regard to maintenance, the patient is considered to behave in a way that improves health and becomes a habit of life. Following this evolution, we now have a new taxonomy for the adherence behavior to the treatments, that is, for the management process of adherence to the medication.