Adherence in Dermatology: a Review of the Last 20 Years

Background: Adherence has been studied in many areas of medicine; however, there are few published articles pertaining to adherence and dermatology.

Objective: The purpose of this review is to summarize the current literature on medical adherence as it specifically applies to dermatology.

Methods: We conducted a PUBMED search between the years of 1985 and 2005 using the following terms: 1-[adherence AND dermatology] and 2-[dermatology AND treatment]. The search was limited to articles in English and human subjects.

Results: The literature search yielded 57 articles. Seventeen of these articles met the inclusion criteria and were reviewed in order to define, measure, quantify, validate, and understand adherence in dermatology.

Conclusions: Adherence to topical therapy among dermatology patients is difficult to measure reliably, hence the few articles available on this topic. A small number of studies using new electronic monitoring technology have shown that dermatology patients have low adherence rates to treatment regimens. There are socioeconomic, cognitive, and psychological factors that contribute to non-adherence among patients. Improving patient knowledge and the doctor-patient relationship are ways to improve patient adherence.