Assessing historical compliance with medical recommendations among transplant candidates: preliminary findings.

CONTEXT: Noncompliance with medical recommendations by transplant candidates and recipients carries serious consequences for morbidity and mortality. Few patient-specific, objective measures for assessing historical compliance exist. OBJECTIVE: To address this gap, a psychometric and exploratory analysis of an interview-based, global measure of clinician-rated judgment of historical compliance was undertaken. METHODS: All findings are based on a retrospective chart review of the medical and psychosocial evaluations of 96 consecutive potential heart transplant candidates seen at a large Southeastern academic medical center. RESULTS: Preliminary results demonstrated adequate interrater reliability and discriminant validity for the measure. Additionally, results from hierarchical multivariable regression analysis revealed years of education to be positively associated with clinician-rated judgment of historical compliance. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides preliminary psychometric support for the use of a measure of historical compliance among heart transplant candidates. Findings from this study also are consistent with the literature to date and may be reflective of a psychobiological process that mediates the relationship between socioeconomic status and health outcomes.