The effect of patients' beliefs about their illnesses on compliance in psychotherapy.

Sixty patients treated in the outpatient psychiatric clinic of a large urban teaching hospital were surveyed regarding their beliefs about the causes of their illness. Patients' beliefs were found to be related to two measures of compliance: number of visits and manner of termination from therapy. Subjects endorsing more medical and fewer nonmedical explanations for their illness made more visits to the clinic and ended treatment in a more compliant manner than did patients who endorsed more nonmedical beliefs about the causes of their illness. Results also showed that, except for age, demographic and diagnostic variables were not related to compliance.