Therapeutic compliance and the cancer patient.

This article provides health educators with background information on compliance and the cancer patient. It describes how compliance behavior of the cancer patient differs from the compliance behavior of other patients, and how what is known about the compliance behavior of other patients may be relevant to the cancer patient. It summarizes the available data on the magnitude of noncompliance by the cancer patient and points out that there have not been any reported studies dealing with programs designed to modify the compliance behavior of the cancer patient.