Objective: The present study aims to identify the socio-demographic features, psychiatric history, clinic features, and progress of euthymic bipolar patients diagnosed with bipolar mood disorder (BMD), to evaluate patients levels of adherence to treatment, to evaluate insight and social support levels and to identify their relationship between treatment adherence.
Method: The sample comprised of 59 BMD patients in Gaziantep University Şahinbey Research and Practice Hospital Psychiatry Department Mood Disorder Clinic, who met the study requirements,
Results: The results revealed that there is a significant relationship between adherence to treatment and social support levels. It was also found out that age, sex, first mood period in the onset of the disorder, progress of the disorder, regular use of drugs, drug non-adherence and its causes (the environments negative attitudes, the opinion that the treatment is useless, experience of side-effects) that have influenced treatment adherence
Conclusion: The following recommendations are made here; evaluating the patients treatment compliance at regular intervals with standardized criteria and scales; planning mental health training for inpatients and their families by groups; organizing psychiatric services taking into account the strengths and weaknesses of families; informing patients and families about coping and building sufficient social support networks, ensuring regular outpatient follow-up of bipolar mood disorder (BMD) patients for access to the treatment team and medication control; taking measures to increase treatment continuation; finally conducting a study with longer follow-up period than this one in a larger sample.
Key words: bipolar mood disorder, insight, social support, treatment adherence
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