1Ex Honorary psychiatrist, Department of Psychiatry, V.S Hospital, Elisbridge, Ahmedabad, pin 380006
2Consultant psychiatrist, ex registrar, Department of Psychiatry, V.S Hospital, V.S hospital, Elisbridge, Ahmedabad, pin 380006
3Resident doctor, Department of Psychiatry, V.S Hospital, V.S hospital, Elisbridge, Ahmedabad, pin 380006
Online published on 17 February, 2017.
This study was carried out with an objective to find out the frequency of different reasons of non-compliance to treatment in a sample of outdoorpsychiatric patients.
This study was conducted at the out patients services of psychiatry clinic. A non-probability sample of 239 follow up patients between twenty to eighty years of age was taken for data collection over a period of three months (from Dec 2014, to Mar, 2015). Data from a non-probability sample of 176 follow up patients with a definite psychiatric illness was collected. A questionnaire designed for this purpose was administered by a consultant psychiatrist to the patients. The data was categorized into different causes of discontinuation of treatment accordingly.
The commonest reasons for non-compliance were unawareness of the benefits of treatment (58.15%), no affordability of drugs (32.63%), physical side effects (22.17%), no awareness given by the doctor (01.25%) and unfriendly attitude of doctors (0.83%). The commonest illnesses leading to non-compliance were major depressive disorder (33.05%), schizophrenia (15.89%) and bipolar affective disorder (17.99%).
Non-compliance is quite common in our country like any other society. Medical practitioners need to be aware of it and address this problem because compliance is directly related to the prognosis of the illness. It is recommended that all efforts should be exerted to improve the compliance of psychiatric patients by eliminating the factors leading to non-compliance.
Non-compliance, Psychiatric illnesses, Treatment
