In 1990, the available data on medication adherence among chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients consistently indicated that adherence was a significant problem. This was a particularly distressing finding, considering that pharmacological therapy was considered the backbone of COPD management in settings where comprehensive rehabilitation services were limited. Despite the importance of this issue and a large data base on how to enhance medication adherence among medical populations, there had been no empirical investigations evaluating the implementation of these strategies with COPD patients.