Evaluate the efficiency of psychoeducation on enhancing treatment adherence in patients with bipolar disorder

This study was carried on experimentally to evaluate the efficiency of psychoeducation on enhancing treatment adherence in patients with Bipolar Affective Disorder.The universe of this research was a group of outpatients of Zonguldak Karaelmas University, Practice and Research Hospital, Mood Disorders Clinic who were diagnosed with Bipolar Affective Disorder according to the DSM-IV-TR criteria. The sample of the study was a group of 63 patients, 30 of whom were experiment and the rest 33 constituted the control group.The data of this study was obtained by using patient identification forms, Medication Adherence Rating Scale (MARS) and Neuroleptic Treatment (ANT) questionnaire which are given to the patients as pre and post test. The experiment group was given 2 hours of psychoeducation for 6 weeks, while the control group was given nothing. For the data analysis Chi Square and T-tests are used.As a result of the study, it was found that 63.3% of the experiment group patients and 57.6% of the control group patients had a story of leaving the treatment; and that the most prominent reason of leaving medication was the thought of recovery (35.59%), and the feeling strong to succeed without medication/drugs (33.89%). While the treatment adherence rate of the patients in experiment group was 40% (12 patients) in the first test, this rate was 86.7% (26 patients) in the last test. Meanwhile the treatment adherence rate of the control group patients was 33.3 % (11 patients) in the first test, and 24.2% (8 patients) in the last test. In the first test the difference in the average of MARS and ANT points of the patients in control and experiment group (p>0.05) was statistically meaningless; however, after the psychoeducation (the last test) an improvement in the rate of adherence was seen in the experiment group and a statistically meaningful difference between the groups (p<0.05) was determined.As a result, with respect to the findings of this study, in order to enhance the treatment adherence of the outpatients diagnosed with Bipolar Affective Disorder psychoeducation is recommended.Key Words: Bipolar disorder, compliance, psychoeducation, nursing.