"Medication non-compliance is highly prevalent across all medical conditions, and represents a major barrier for realising the benefits of evidence-based therapies. The aim of the project is to produce evidence-based policy recommendations for improving patient compliance and subsequent better use of medicines by Europeans. Lack of consensus in the terminology used in this field impedes benchmarking of compliance-enhancing interventions. Therefore the first stage of the project will be to build a pan-European consensus on terminology and taxonomy of non-compliance. Effective interventions in this field should take into account the differences that exist between determinants of compliance with short-term and chronic treatments, and for different clinical sectors, health care settings and population segments. Therefore, not only will the determinants of patient compliance be identified in a systematic review of the literature, but also a survey across 16 European countries, and discrete choice experiment will be conducted. Then, a conceptual framework for the influential factors of non-compliance will be developed. Current practices of compliance management by healthcare professionals and the pharmaceutical industry will be compared across Europe, as well as educational programs from schools of medicine and pharmacy. Compliance-enhancing interventions will be compared in terms of practicality, clinical- and cost-effectiveness. The information gathered will be integrated, and priorities made to inform policy recommendations on strategies to improve patient compliance. The project findings will be discussed extensively with European experts, and based to the consensus obtained, the final recommendations will be formulated and presented to the European Commission and other relevant stakeholders. To enable widespread dissemination of the project results, they will be made available to the public as conference presentations, scientific publications and Web material."