The Effect of Information Therapy on Treatment Adherence among Patients Referred to Addiction Treatment Centers

BACKGROUND: The low level of drug adherence in addicts who are quitting is one of the biggest challenges in the treatment and management of this disease. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the effect of information therapy on adherence to treatment among the patients in addiction treatment centers. METHODS: The present quasi-experimental study was performed on 60 patients referred to addiction treatment centers in Jiroft City, Iran. The control and experimental groups were selected using simple random sampling method. The 8-item Morisky Medication Adherence Scale was used for data collection. The level of adherence to treatment was assessed before and after the intervention, which consisted of 6 one-hour training sessions per week. FINDINGS: The adherence to medication was low in both experimental and control groups before the notification. However, the chi-square value obtained by comparing the frequencies of the experimental and control groups in three variables of adherence level (high, moderate, and low) was 9.84 which was statistically significant (P = 0.007). Therefore, there was a significant difference between the experimental and control groups after information therapy. In fact, the information in the experimental group had a significant and positive effect. CONCLUSION: Because of the low level of adherence to treatment, it is recommended to use information therapy to give information on timely and correct use of drugs as well as its importance in the treatment of addiction; so that the level of adherence would improve.