Treatment adherence can refer to a patient’s adherence to a clinician’s instructions, such as a medication regimen or psychotherapy homework assignment. It can also refer to physician adherence to a medication prescription guideline or therapist adherence to a psychotherapy model, protocol, or technique. This entry discusses therapist adherence.

In psychotherapy research, the three components of treatment integrity are (1) the competence with which the treatment is delivered, (2) the extent to which the treatment can be differentiated from other treatments, and (3) adherence. Adherence is the extent to which a treatment as implemented by a practitioner includes techniques prescribed by a particular model or manual and excludes or avoids proscribed techniques. Other aspects of treatment delivery, such as the number, length, and temporal spacing of treatment ...