Agnė Sipavičiūtė¹

¹ Faculty of Medicine, Vilnius University, Vilnius, Lithuania

Abstract

Medication nonadherence is a common problem among schizophrenia patients that can cause long-term disabling outcomes. Various psychosocial interventions are used to improve medication adherence: psychoeducation, cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), behavioural interventions, motivational interviewing (MI), adherence therapy (AT) and other. Clinically significant improvements in medication compliance can be achieved through the appointment of psychosocial interventions of high quality that are based on improvement of relationship between health care professional and the patient, behavioural changes, and improvement of patient’s knowledge about schizophrenia and its treatment. Didactic, paternalistic interventions are considered to be ineffective as well as provision of information without any further discussion with the patient.

PubMed and Cochrane databases were used for the search of articles using the following keywords: medication adherence, intervention, schizophrenia. The purpose of this article is to review interventions used to improve medication adherence in schizophrenia patients.

Keywords: medication adherence, intervention, schizophrenia.