The frequency of regular participation of patients registered at a community mental health center with the diagnosis of psychotic disorders and evaluation of related factors

This cross-sectional study was conducted to examine the frequency of regular participation of patients registered at a Community Mental Health Center (CMHC) with the diagnosis of psychotic disorders and to evaluate related factors. The study included 105 patients between the ages of 18-65 years, who were diagnosed with schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder and delusional disorder according to the DSM-5 and who were registered at the CMHC affiliated to a psychiatric hospital in İstanbul. Inventory tools included a Socio-demographic Information Form, A Questionnaire on Clinical Characteristics of Patients Registered to the CMHC and their Opinions on CMHC, Medication Adherence Rating Scale (MARS), Internalized Stigma in Mental Illness (ISMI), Turkish Version of the World Health Organization Quality of Life (WHOQOL-BREF TR) and the Clinical Global Impression Scale (CGI). Data were analyzed using the Student's t-test, Pearson chi-square test, Kolmogorov-Smirnov and Shapiro-Wilk tests. The frequency of regular participation in the CMHC program was found to be 13.8%. Three quarters of the patients with regular participation in the CMHC program were males and the patients with social insurance had a higher frequency of regular participation (p<0.05). Those having regular participation had a history of illness for more than 16 years, 3 or more hospitalizations, and a longer duration of medications (p<0.05). Regular participation in the CMHC program was also associated with a higher family support (p<0.05). Factors that encouraged the patients to visit the CMHC ranked in the following order: friendly relations of CMHC employees (100%), easy access to the counselor (95%), peaceful CMHC environment (92.5%), and easy access to a psychiatrist (92.5%). While patients with and without regular participation to the CMHC program did not differ in WHOQOL-BREF TR total scale scores (p>0.05), those with regular participation had significantly higher mean scores on the 'physical' and 'environment' subscales (p<0.05). In this study, regular participation of the patients in the CMHC program were related to gender, social security coverage, disease severity, family support, easy access to the counselor and psychiatrist, friendly approach of the CMHC team to the patients and the CMHC environment. In this context, attempts to increase the participation of patients in CMHC programs should take into account the factors that improve regular participation.