Level of adherence to antipsychotic drugs among mental helath care users in Tswaing Sub-district

Abstract

Sub-optimal adherence to antipsychotic drugs is a global problem and it is driven by various factors which include patient, treatment, nurse patient relationship and environmental factors. These four level factors have been reported to be associated with low level of adherence among Mental Health Care Users (MHCU). The low level of adherence causes a high rate of relapse which results in re-hospitalization of MHCU in Tswaing Sub-district. The purpose of this study was to determine the level of adherence to antipsychotic drugs among MHCU in Tswaing Sub-district. A quantitative descriptive and cross sectional study was used and the target population for this study was MHCU who were collecting treatment from health care facilities in Tswaing Sub-district. The health care facilities that participated in the study were selected by using purposive sampling technique to select five out of twelve health care facilities. The inclusion criterion for this study was all MHCU who have been on antipsychotic treatment for more than a year from 21 years old to 55 years old. The sample size was calculated by Raosoft sample size calculator. Based on that, there were 357 MHCU on antipsychotic treatment. Then simple random sampling was used to select 299 MHCU to participate as calculated per clinic. After administering SPMSQ, 234 MHCU qualified to participate in the study. The study has use done questionnaire to collect data which comprise of three sections namely: Patient Adherence Questionnaire (PAQ), Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) and Pill Identification Test (PIT). The PAQ has 16 questions and comprise two sections namely: Socio-demographic characteristics and patient adherence record which is self-reporting. The VAS is a psychometric response scale which was used in a form of a questionnaire. The PIT was used to assess the knowledge of mental health care users regarding their prescribed medications. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) for windows version 20 was used for data analysis. The findings of the study revealed that 90% of MHCU did not meet the minimum optimum level of adherence of 80%. This desired effect of 80% was met by only 10% of MHCU. The results are discussed based on the three objectives of the study. iii The limitations of the study were also discussed. The main recommendations for this study under practice include adequate supply of anti psychotics to health care facilities by health care providers to avoid medication unavailability.