Abstract

CASTRO, Sílvia et al. Adherence to medical therapy: the development and the validation of a questionnaire. Psic., Saúde & Doenças [online]. 2020, vol.21, n.3, pp.713-725.  Epub Dec 31, 2020. ISSN 1645-0086.  https://doi.org/10.15309/20psd210314.

Adherence to medical therapy can be understood as the process by which patients respect a given medical prescription/recommendation. To measure this adherence, it is possible to apply questionnaires. However, the availability of this type of instrument is highly conditioned on adherence to specific pathologies, and there is no general questionnaire to measure it in Portugal. To fill this gap, the present investigation was developed. This was a procedure of construction / development and validation of a questionnaire that respected reliability, content and construct analyzes. The development involved the creation of a technical panel for literature review and medical consultancy. After the pre-test, the questionnaire was disseminated online, consisting of 35 items, together with a sociodemographic questionnaire and a questionnaire to assess the Health Locus of Control. The responses of the 222 individuals who participated in this study made it possible to calculate a measure of very good internal consistency (α = 0,80). From the submission of items to Exploratory Factor Analysis (KMO = 0,751), a factorial solution with two dimensions was obtained (α = 0,81 and α = 0,75, respectively). Positive results were also obtained for convergent validity (adherence to therapy*control locus for health = 0,412; p <0,001). The questionnaire for assessing adherence to medical therapy developed and validated in the present investigation has good psychometric properties and is capable of assessing adherence in a clinical and research context in this area.

Keywords : Adherence to medical therapy; questionnaire.

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