 Medical compliance as an ideologyJames A. Trostle Social Science & Medicine, 1988, vol. 27, issue 12, 1299-1308 Abstract: Medical compliance researchers have produced more than 4000 scientific papers in the past two decades, but their research into determinants of non-compliance has been inconclusive. This paper argues that the popularity of compliance and the uncertainty over its determinants can be understood if compliance is analyzed as an ideology that assumes and justifies physician authority. I explore compliance as a problematic concept, looking at its assumptions and its influences on clinical practice. The concept of patient compliance has a social history linked to the struggle to create and maintain physician control over infant feeding technology earlier in this century. But while physicians were successful in that struggle, they have never exercised complete control over health care products. Compliance must be reconceptualized and its research reoriented if it is accurately to portray medication usage and related health behaviors outside the clinic. Keywords: non-compliance; doctor-patient; relationship; medical; history; ideology (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:socmed:v:27:y:1988:i:12:p:1299-1308 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from Access Statistics for this article Social Science & Medicine is currently edited by Ichiro (I.) Kawachi and S.V. (S.V.) Subramanian More articles in Social Science & Medicine from Elsevier |
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