Medication Adherence among Patients with Schizophrenia Treated with Antipsychotics at Adama Hospital, East Shoa Zone, Oromia Regional State

Abstract

Background: Schizophrenia is a classic psychiatric diagnosis in which patients experience psychotic symptoms for longer than 6 months. Non adherence is a major problem in the treatment of schizophrenia which is significantly associated with treatment out come and is the major cause of relapse in the treatment of schizophrenia. High prevalence, costs associated with it and potentially severe consequences are those cases that made the study of this phenomenon a priority issue. The objective of this study was to evaluate adherence rates to schizophrenic patients. Methods: Cross-sectional method was conducted over 2 month period (March 10th to May 15th) in Adama hospital and patients self-reporting using an interview (focusing on how often regular medication doses were missed altogether, and whether they missed taking their doses on time) was used to evaluate adherence rates to schizophrenic medications. Data collected was analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20 software, which is used to associate different variables with an adherence. Result: In the study 141 patients were included and on the basis of patients self-report, 56% of patients reported that they had never missed a medication dose, 14.18% sometimes missed their daily doses, 11.35% only missed taking their dose at the specific scheduled time and 18.49% missed both taking their dose at the specific scheduled time and sometimes missed their daily doses. The most common reason for missing medication doses were forgetfulness (43.5%), being busy (17.7%), lack of sufficient information about medication (14.5%) and pill burden (8%). duration of maintenance therapy, social drug Use and medication side effects each had a statistically significant association with medication adherence (p < 0.05). Conclusion: It was well observed that medication adherence in this study was low as compared to previous reports. Forgetfulness was the most common reason for missing medication dose. Adherence must therefore be considered when planning treatment strategies with schizophrenic medications, particularly in countries such as Ethiopia.