Prevalence of Antipsychotic Drug Non Adherence and Associated Factors Among Patients with Schizophrenia Attending at Amanuel Mental Specialized Hospital, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: Institutional Based Cross Sectional Study

Abstract

Background: Drug non adherence is a problem in all areas of medicine, and psychiatry is no exception. Mental health institutions are widely over burdened by mental ill patient who sought frequent treatment as a result of drug non adherence. Although patients suffering from psychiatric disorders are the most likely not to adhere to treatment than any other physical illness; there was no study done to determine the prevalence and associated factors of antipsychotic drug non adherence among schizophrenia patients in Ethiopia. So this study was aimed to assess the prevalence and associated factors of antipsychotic drug non-adherence among patients with schizophrenia attending at Amanuel mental specialized hospital.

Impact of adverse reactions to first-generation antipsychotics on treatment adherence in outpatients with schizophrenia: a cross-sectional study

“…Association of specific adverse effect categories and non-adherence found in the present study is in line with some studies, which reported extrapyramidal [9,15,21,22], hormonal [8,9,15], psychic [8,9,15,18], and miscellaneous reactions such as weight gain [9] as determinants of non-adherence. Nevertheless, some studies reported a minimal or no relationship between antipsychotic ADRs and risk of non-adherence [33], reported no significant association of adherence and all of the seven LUNSERS subscales.…”

“…In this study, one in three of the study participants were found to be non-adherent to their treatment regimens. This is more or less similar to a finding reported in a review of similar studies (40.5%) published in 2002 [5] and other latest studies conducted elsewhere [6,15,29] but lower than some studies reported in Ethiopia (48.4%) [22], Nigeria (51.7%) [16], Kenya (60.4) [21] and Egypt (74%) [30]. On the other hand, lower rates of nonadherence than the present finding were reported in Latin American community-dwelling (19.8%) [31] and northern Ethiopia (26.5%) [17].…”

“…According to a Cochrane review, doses of less than 400 mg/d (low dose) and those of intermediate dose of 400-800 mg/d have similar efficacy with the higher dose obviously producing [32]. Therefore, the dose-related adverse effect severity in our study could have probably been lower and hence contributing to the more favorable adherence rate than what has been reported in other African studies [16,21,22,30].…”

“…Medication adherence is influenced by several factors, that include the World Health Organization's five dimensions: Socio-economic situation, health system, condition, patient, and therapy [7]. Besides, several studies have mainly attributed psychiatric treatment nonadherence to the experience of antipsychotic-induced ADRs [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22]. Ultimately, non-adherence to antipsychotic medications often leads to relapse in psychotic disorders, repeated hospitalizations, increased risk of suicide [23] and higher treatment costs [10].…”

The Relation between Psychotic Patients' Strength of Religious Faith and Adherence to Medication

“…Non-adherence for individuals with a mental condition is connected to raise individual suffering, deterioration, and re-hospitalization, and reduced excellence of life. Also, it is related to increasing rates of mortality and morbidity (Girma et al, 2017).…”