Self-reported treatment adherence among psychiatric in- and outpatients

Background: Poor adherence to psychiatric treatment is a common clinical problem, leading to unfavourable treatment outcome and increased healthcare costs.Aim: The aim of this study was to investigate the self-reported adherence and attitudes to outpatient visits and pharmacotherapy in specialized care psychiatric patients.Methods: Within the Helsinki University Psychiatric Consortium (HUPC) pilot study, in- and outpatients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder (SSA, n=113), bipolar disorder (BD, n=99), or depressive disorder (DD, n=188) were surveyed about their adherence and attitudes towards outpatient visits and pharmacotherapy. Correlates of self-reported adherence to outpatient and drug treatment were investigated using regression analysis.Results: The majority (78.5%) of patients reported having attended outpatient visits regularly or only partly irregularly. Most patients (79.2%) also reported regular use of pharmacotherapy. Self-reported non-adherence to preceding outpatient visits was consistently and significantly more common among inpatients than outpatients across all diagnostic groups (p