title: How to increase patient adherence to therapy.
abstract: How do we increase patient adherence to therapy? As dermatologists, we will see thousands of patients over the course of our careers, most with treatable conditions that will improve with therapy and others with chronic or genetic conditions that will at least be made more tolerable with therapy. Approximately half of patients with chronic conditions are adherent to therapy. Why some patients adhere to treatment and others do not can be difficult to understand. The emotional makeup, culture, family background, socioeconomic status, and motivation of each person is unique, which leads to complexity. This column is not meant to answer a question that is both complex and broad; rather, it is meant to survey and summarize the literature on this enigmatic topic.
authors.affiliation: Department of Dermatology, University of California, San Diego, USA.
authors.forename: Megan
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Brown
mesh_terms: D003880:Dermatology; D057220:Health Literacy; D006801:Humans; D009042:Motivation; D010349:Patient Compliance; D010353:Patient Education as Topic