Browse the glossary:

adherence to medications

— The process by which patients take their medications as prescribed; it has three components: initiation, implementation, and persistence, followed by discontinuation.

Synonyms:

compliance, concordance

Full explanation:

‘Adherence to treatment’ is also used outside of studies, although the term ‘compliance’ is more commonly used.

In that context, compliance is the degree to which patients follow treatment recommendations, or the extent to which health workers follow recommendations in guidelines.

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