Health pyschology Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Health pyschology - Essay Example There are various reasons why patients fail to comply with medical treatment. One of the reasons involves the negative effects linked with certain medications. There are some medicines associated with an increase in weight and hence people fear that increased weight will impact negatively on their general well being. Others negative effects associated with certain medications that lead to non-compliance include a decrease in sexual drive, as well as other effects such as headaches and nausea. Non-compliance may also b caused by shame associated with taking certain types of medications. For instance, a HIV positive individual may fail to comply with treatment for fear of other people finding out of his or her status as it may lead to discrimination. The cost of medicines and medical treatment is also a major cause of non-compliance. Some treatments are very expensive and if the patient is unable to afford the medicine, then he or she is forced to discontinue with treatment hence non-c ompliance. Other factors that may lead to non-compliance include fear of developing dependence to certain medications, and also unavailability of relevant medicines (Mitchell and Selmes, 2007. There are a lot of intricacies associated with contemporary research on methods to measure compliance. Therefore, the methods currently used are considered conventional. These are grouped into direct and indirect methods. Direct methods comprises of laboratory techniques to measure the levels of certain chemical elements found in certain medicines in body fluids particularly blood and urine. The only limitation to this method is the fact that it does not detect the compliance to all types of medicines (Vermeire et-al, 2001). According to (Vermeire et-al, 2001: 334) "Indirect measures include process measures such as interviews, diaries, tablet counts, prescription filling dates and therapeutic and preventive outcome measures". According to a study