Effect of Psycho-Educative Intervention on Adherence to Treatment, Knowledge and Attitude among Persons with Bipolar Affective Disorder (BPAD) – Randomized Controlled Trial

Abstract

Introduction: Enhancement of treatment adherence in bipolar disorder is a necessary and promising management component as an adjunct to pharmacotherapy. The main purpose of the study was to find the effect of psycho-educative intervention on adherence to treatment among persons with BPAD. Method: A randomized controlled trial was conducted with a sample size of 50; 24 in experimental and 26 in control group. Four sessions of psycho-education was given to the patient in experimental group and the outcome was measured immediately after the intervention and at 1 month and 3 months. Results: The study findings shows that there was a significant improvement of knowledge and attitude scores among the experimental group to the control group(p =0.001).There was a difference in adherence seen between the groups, however the difference was not statistically significant (p = 0.111). Conclusion: From the present study it was concluded that psycho educative intervention along with pharmacotherapy is one of the most easy, flexible and cost effective intervention to enhance treatment adherence in bipolar disorder.