Improved patient compliance with cleft palate team regimes

A cleft palate team's prescribed regimen requires prompt and continued compliance to meet the objectives of the clinical management and to achieve the best clinical results for the patient. In a previous study (Paynter et al., 1990), we reported an overall compliance rate of 64% for patients seen by a cleft palate team during its first 8 years of operation. After the study, changes in the team's operational procedures were made in an attempt to provide better service, improve patient compliance, and improve the efficiency of the clinic. The purposes of the current clinical investigation were to determine the degree of compliance with recommendations made by the cleft palate team for the patients seen during the four years after the implementation of the changes and to identify variables that interfered with compliance. A subject was defined as the person(s) who could best respond to questions concerning the management of the team's patient. Each subject was interviewed using a questionnaire based on the Health Belief Model (Becker et al., 1977). The mean patient compliance rate was 82%. Using Jones and Caldwell's (1981) classification, 56.7% of the patients were classified as compliers, 40% as partial compliers, and 3.3% as noncompliers. Compliance with specific recommendations ranged from 58 to 100%. No specific variable was found to interfere with compliance.