Health ministry of republic of moldova the university of medicine and pharmacy nicolae testemiţanu

5. Therapeutic compliance
In the Oxford dictionary, 
compliance
is defined as the practice of 
obeying rules or requests made by people in authority (Oxford Advan-
ced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English). In healthcare, the most 
commonly used definition of compliance is “
patient’s behaviours
(in 
terms of taking medication, following diets, or executing life style chan-

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ges) coincide with healthcare providers’ recommendations for health 
and medical advice.
The 
therapeutic compliance
refers to the match between medical 
prescription and their applications by the patient in order to obtain the 
cure of an illness. This therapeutic compliance implies a passive role of 
a patient, according to the medical model of the disease. Nowadays there 
is an emphasis on the active role of the patient and on the therapeutically 
negotiation in the doctor-patient relationship for the final therapeutically 
plan, which is called 
therapeutic adherence
to treatment. This implies a 
professional transaction between doctor and patient in order to obtain 
final for of treatment, acceptable for both parts. 
Thus, 
therapeutic non-compliance 
occurs when an individual’s 
health-seeking or maintenance behavior lacks congruence with the 
recommendations as prescribed by a healthcare provider. Other similar 
terms have been used instead of compliance, and the meaning is more or 
less identical. For example, the term
 adherence
is often used interchan-
geably with compliance. Adherence is defined as the ability and willing-
ness to abide by a prescribed therapeutic regimen. Recently, the term 
“concordance”
is also suggested to be used. Compared with “complian-
ce”, the term concordance makes the patient the decision-maker in the 
process and denotes patients-prescribers agreement and harmony. 
Although there are slight and subtle differences between these terms, in 
clinical practice, these terms are used interchangeably. 
Examples of non-compliance: 
–
treatment modifications without consulting the doctor; 
–
demand of hospital discharge without medical advice; 
–
stop of treatment without medical advice.