Non-Compliance and Related Factors in Patients With Bipolar I Disorder: A Six Month Follow-Up Study

BACKGROUND: Medication treatment compliance among bipolar patients is quite widespread. OBJECTIVES: Treatment compliance depends on multiple factors. The aim of this study was to evaluate the predicting factors of noncompliance in patients with bipolar I disorder admitted to an Iranian hospital during a six-month follow up period. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This cross-sectional study included 47 bipolar I disorder subjects who were admitted to the Iran psychiatric hospital and that were chosen using a non-randomized convenient sampling model. The patients were assessed at baseline, and at two and six months after admission. For evaluating the patients, we used the medication possession ratio (MPR), the drug attitude inventory (DIA-10), the young mania rating scale (Y-MRS) and the scale for the assessment of positive symptoms (SAPS). The data were analyzed using a general linear model by SPSS 16 software. RESULTS: The repeated measures analysis revealed that medication compliance increased successively (P = 0.045), and age, gender and symptom severity did not alter the pattern. CONCLUSIONS: There is an increasing pattern in treatment compliance in bipolar I disorder patients, regardless of the known predicting factors for nonadherence.