Medication adherence and its correlates among patients affected by schizophrenia with an episodic course: A large-scale multi-center cross-sectional study in China.

Medication adherence and its correlates among patients affected by schizophrenia with an episodic course: A large-scale multi-center cross-sectional study in China. Asian J Psychiatr. 2020 Jun 08;53:102198 Authors: Wang D, Ross B, Xi C, Pan Y, Zhou L, Yang X, Wu G, Ouyang X, Si T, Liu Z, Hu X Abstract The Medication Adherence Rating Scale (MARS) is a fast, non-intrusive way of measuring adherence to medication in order to improve the management of patients with schizophrenia. The current cross-sectional study evaluated the reliability of the Chinese (Mandarin) version of the MARS and explored clinical and demographic correlates to medication adherence in a large sample of patients affected by schizophrenia with an episodic course in China. 1198 patients were recruited from 37 different hospitals in 17 provinces/municipalities of China and evaluated with the Medication Adherence Rating Scale (MARS), Clinical Global Impression-Severity of Illness (CGI-SI) and Sheehan Disability Scale-Chinese version (SDS-C). The MARS showed good internal consistency; Cronbach's alpha of total MARS was 0.83. Among the cohort of patients affected by schizophrenia with an episodic course, 28.5 % met the criteria of good adherence to antipsychotic medication; age, steady income, and severity of illness had significant effects on medication adherence. Medication adherence of patients affected by schizophrenia in mainland China was found to be relatively low...
Source: Asian Journal of Psychiatry - Category: Psychiatry Tags: Asian J Psychiatr Source Type: research