Measuring the compliance behavior of adolescents wearing orthopedic braces

This paper reports the observed difference between two measures of compliance in wearing an orthopedic brace among teenagers affected by idiopathic scoliosis. The first measure was obtained with a small device called a "compli-o-meter" that was developed specifically for this purpose. When fastened to an orthopedic brace, this instrument determines the brace's actual wearing time. The second compliance measure was derived from a questionnaire-interview administered to the participants. The subjects were 40 female teenagers aged between 10 and 16 years who had been wearing an orthopedic brace for 18 months or less. While the compliance rate reported by the participants averaged 88%, the actual rate measured by the compli-o-meter was only 33%. Pearson's correlation was r = .33, with a significance of p < .05 between these two measurements. Care should be exerted in assessing the therapeutic efficiency of an orthopedic brace based exclusively on a patient's reported compliance level. In particular, basing a recommendation to change the brace based solely on this information may result in erroneous and serious therapeutic actions. The efficiency of orthopedic braces should be assessed on objective measures of the actual compliance rate wherever possible.