Psychotropic Medication Non-adherence among Psychiatric Patients at King Abdulaziz Hospital-Makkah

Background: Non-adherence to psychotropic medication among psychiatric patients is one among the huge medical problem in Saudi Arabia. Most of the psychiatric patients do not adhere to the instruction of the physician in such a way that they reappear in the hospital after medication and getting well.

Aim: To assess psychotropic medication non-adherence among psychiatric patients at King Abdulaziz hospital in Makkah city, Saudi Arabia.

Methods: A cross-sectional study conducted on 342 psychiatric patients with age group between 18-65 years, and is visiting the outpatient clinics and subjected to psychotropic medication at the department of psychiatry at King Abdulaziz Hospital. Data were collected from the psychiatric patients using the designed questionnaire. The Medication Adherence Rating Scale (MARS) were used to assess the level of adherence to medication.

Results: A total of 342 of patients participated in the study. One hundred ninety-one, 191(55.8%), were females. About half (54.4%) of the patients were married, (53.5%) of them were between 30-39 years old. A significant relation between the educational level of participants and adherence to medication (P <0.05) were recorded. Patients in this study reported that the impacts of non-adherence to the medication are a relapse of the symptoms (25%), cannot sleep (15.2%), bad mood (10.2%), and agitation (4.7%).

Conclusion: Non-adherence remains a significant challenge for patients with psychiatric disorders, physicians, healthcare systems which resulting in poorer outcomes for patients. Though the predictors of non-adherence among psychiatric patients are multifactorial, the strongest determinants in this study were the increased number of medication, the presence of side effect, and forgetting of taking medication. According to this we recommend adhering to monotherapy except when the use of multiple drugs becomes compelling and takes into consideration the side effects of medications.