Adherence to Pediatric Medical Regimens

The third edition of this book provides comprehensive coverage of pediatric medical adherence, including such important topics as the extent of nonadherence and medical consequences, predictors of adherence, theories about adherence and clinical applications, and assessment strategies for adherence and health outcomes. In addition, chapters describe strategies for improving adherence, review research studies on improving adherence, and address ways to improve research on adherence for children and adolescents with chronic diseases. The new edition also examines the developmental aspects of adherence assessment and intervention as well as cultural, ethical, and legal issues in adherence research and practice.
Key areas of coverage include:

• Consequences of nonadherence and correlates of adherence.
• Developmental aspects related to assessing and improving pediatric medical adherence.
• Assessing pediatric disease and health status.
• Cultural, ethical, and legal issues related to pediatric medical adherence.

Adherence to Pediatric Medical Regimens, Third Edition, is an essential reference for researchers, professors, and graduate students as well as clinicians, therapists, and other practitioners in developmental, clinical child and school psychology, child and adolescent psychiatry, pediatrics and pediatric psychology, social work, public health, health psychology, and all interrelated fields.


Michael Rapoff, Ph.D., is well known for his research on pediatric medical adherence. For 38 years, he was a Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Kansas Medical Center, where he did research, taught psychology to medical students and pediatric residents, and saw patients in both outpatient and inpatient clinical settings. The first and second editions of his book, Adherence to Pediatric Medical Regimens, have been quoted frequently in the literature and have been used as a textbook by professors in the United States and other countries. In 2003, Dr. Rapoff received the Distinguished Scholar Award from the Association of Rheumatology Health Professionals, a division of the American College of Rheumatology. Also in 2003, Dr. Rapoff was elected as a Fellow in the Society of Pediatric Psychology. During 2018, he served as President of the Society of Pediatric Psychology (Division 54 of the American Psychological Association). He became board certified in Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology by the American Board of Professional Psychology in 2015.
Christina Duncan, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of Psychology and an Adjunct Clinical Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at West Virginia University. For more than 20 years, she has had a consistent record of publishing and garnering extramural funding to support her program of research on adherence in pulmonary disorders. Dr. Duncan is active in the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, having been appointed to the Clinical Research Committee (grant review panel), Data Safety and Monitoring Board, and conference program planning committee. She served two consecutive terms as secretary for the Society of Pediatric Psychology. Dr. Duncan has received awards for her scholarly productivity as well as her clinical and professional service.
Cynthia Karlson, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology and Psychiatry and Human Behavior at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. Dr. Karlson's clinical interests focus on psychosocial adjustment to pediatric chronic medical conditions. Her research program focuses on chronic pain and sleep disturbance in children with cancer and sickle cell disease. She has published on developmental and biopsychosocial models of pediatric chronic pain and long-term pain in survivors of childhood cancer. Dr. Karlson is active as a Behavioral Science Member on Children's Oncology Group clinical trial protocols as well as in local and national clinical trials in pediatric sickle cell disease.