older adults' use of memory strategies and self-reported medication compliance : a metacognitive model
abstract
fifty community-dwelling adults aged 51-83 years of age (m=70.1, sd=7.61) reported
their medication compliance and their use of memory strategies. the first goal of the
present study was to replicate gould mcdonald-miszczak, and king’s (1997) research on
older adults’ use of memory strategies to aid medication compliance. as in the gould et
al. (1997) study, older adults reported using internal strategies more often than external
strategies for medication compliance, and the use of strategies was predicted by
metamemorial variables (p<.05) rather than by objective health related factors. the
second goal of this study was to extend the research by gould et al. (1997), who found
that metamemorial variables, rather than objective medical factors, were significant
predictors of self-reported medication compliance. the present study used a new selfreport
measure of compliance, and examined cognitive performance in addition to health
related and metamemorial assessments. the self-report measure of compliance was tied
more to objective health factors than to subjective beliefs, as medical factors contributed
significantly to the prediction of self-reported compliance (p=.05). finally, a
metacognitive path model specific to self-reported compliance was tested, and the
importance of compliance, a belief laden variable, predicted self-reported compliance
through prospective strategy use. the results of this study suggest that medication
compliance is a complex mixture of both objective health related factors and subjective
metacognitive assessments.
collections
- retrospective theses [1604]