Patients

*John Weinman, head of the department of health psychology at the Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College London, on how insights from health psychology can help improve patient compliance<*

John Weinman, head of the department of health psychology at the Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College London, on how insights from health psychology can help improve patient compliance

Poor communication between doctors and patients is one cause of medical non-adherence.

If side effects arent discussed, or the importance of routine isnt fully conveyed or understood, patients can end up surprised, scared, or discontent with their treatments.

But even if doctors communicate commendably, medical non-adherence often still results due to what John Weinman, head of the department of health psychology at the Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College London, calls intentional non-adherencepatients deliberately choose to ignore or modify the treatment they have been prescribed.

Much of the massive adherence problem, in other words, derives not from misunderstanding or forgetfulness, but rather from that age-old problem of human beings thinking they know best.

In this podcast, Professor Weinman discusses how the field of health psychology can help illuminate and explain some of the behaviors that motivate non-adherence.

He also discusses how insights from health psychology can be fed back into doctor training to pre-empt the problem and what pharma companies can do to improve adherence to their drugs.