Effect of medication-related factors on adherence in people with schizophrenia: A European multi-centre study

Antipsychotic treatment and risk of discontinuation and hospitalization in first-episode schizophrenia: a nationwide population-based study

BACKGROUND

Current evidence on antipsychotic treatment and risk of psychiatric hospitalization in first-episode schizophrenia (FES) is largely based on the findings from randomized clinical trials (RCTs). However, the generalization of the findings to real-world patients is limited due to inherent caveats of the RCT. We aimed to investigate the treatment discontinuation and risk of psychiatric hospitalization using a nationwide population database.

METHODS

The Health Insurance Review Agency database in South Korea was obtained, and the observation period started from 1 January 2009 to 31 December 2016. We defined the maintenance period as the period from 6-month after the diagnosis of schizophrenia, which is utilized for the main results. For a total of 44 396 patients with FES, a within-individual Cox regression model was used to compare the risk of the treatment discontinuation and psychiatric hospitalization.

RESULTS

In group comparison, a long-acting injectable (LAI) antipsychotic group was associated with the lowest risk of the treatment discontinuation (0.64, 0.55-0.75) and psychiatric hospitalization (0.29, 0.22-0.38) in comparison with a typical antipsychotic group and no use, respectively. Among individual antipsychotics, the lowest risk of the treatment discontinuation was observed in LAI paliperidone (0.46, 0.37-0.66) compared to olanzapine. Clozapine was found to be the most effective antipsychotic in lowering the risk of psychiatric hospitalization as monotherapy compared to no use (0.23, 0.18-0.31).

CONCLUSIONS

In real-world patients with FES, LAI paliperidone and clozapine were associated with low treatment discontinuation and better effectiveness in lowering the risk of psychiatric hospitalization.

The Effect of Therapeutic Alliance on Attitudes Toward Psychiatric Medications in Schizophrenia

PURPOSE/BACKGROUND

The differential influence of therapeutic alliance with different health care professionals on patients' medication adherence has never been examined.

METHODS/PROCEDURES

Ninety-five stable outpatients (91 patients with schizophrenia and 4 patients with schizoaffective disorder) were recruited. Individual, clinical, and medication factors were assessed, along with drug attitude (10-item Drug Attitude Inventory). Comparison on these factors was made between outpatients who identified psychiatrists as the health care professional most involved in their care, as compared with other health care professionals.

FINDINGS/RESULTS

Older age, longer duration of illness, presence of medical comorbidities, lower levels of internalized stigma, higher levels of insight, higher levels of functioning, lesser severity of depressive symptoms, and positive symptoms were found to be significantly associated with greater levels of drug attitude (small to moderate associations). Only therapeutic alliance had a large correlation with drug attitude (ρ = 0.503, P < 0.001). The therapeutic alliance scores between the 2 health care professionals groups are not significantly different. However, participants who have identified psychiatrists as the health care professional that contributed the most to their recovery reported a significantly more positive attitude (μ = 6.18, SD = 3.42) toward psychiatric medication as compared with the other health care professionals group (μ = 3.11, SD = 5.32, P = 0.004). Only 2 factors, the Revised Helping Alliance Questionnaire (β = 0.424, P < 0.001) and Personal and Social Performance scale (β = 0.272, P = 0.006), were statistically significant predictors of drug attitude.

IMPLICATIONS/CONCLUSIONS

Therapeutic alliance is found to be the lead factor associated with drug attitude in patients with schizophrenia. Identifying psychiatrists as the health care professional most involved in the patients' recovery can greatly increase patients' drug attitudes. Maintaining individuals' functioning also contributes to drug attitude.

Antipsychotic Treatment Failure: A Systematic Review on Risk Factors and Interventions for Treatment Adherence in Psychosis

Objective: Antipsychotic medication non-adherence has detrimental effects on patients' clinical outcome. It is unclear which risk factors affect adherence most and which interventions are effective at improving adherence to antipsychotic medication. The aim of this systematic review is to summarize evidence exploring risk factors of non-adherence to antipsychotic treatment and effectiveness of intervention to improve adherence in patients with psychotic spectrum disorders.

Methods: We conducted a systematic search in PubMed from 1994 to 2019 using a structured search strategy. Studies were quality assessed, and studies reporting on possible risk factors and intervention strategies were synthesized.

Results: We reviewed 26 studies on factors related to antipsychotic medication adherence and 17 studies on interventions to improve adherence in patients with psychosis spectrum disorders. Risk factors of non-adherence included younger age, poor illness insight, cannabis abuse, and the presence of severe positive symptoms. Antipsychotic medication adherence was associated with positive attitude toward medication of both patients and their family, family involvement, and illness insight. Somewhat consistent evidence was found for interventions involving family and technology-based interventions and strategies combining depot medication with psychoeducation. However, given the wide range of heterogeneous interventions and methodological limitations, findings must be interpreted with caution.

Conclusion: Despite much effort invested in the research area of antipsychotic medication adherence, the heterogeneity in study design and outcome, adding to confounding effects and possible biases, and methodological restraints complicate comparability of the results. Future research in this field should therefore be conducted on patient-tailored interventions, considering risk factors affecting the patient and implementing well-validated, standardized assessment methods. Accordingly, this systematic review seeks to facilitate endeavors improving adherence to antipsychotic treatment by identifying modifiable and non-modifiable risk factors, outlining effective intervention strategies, and proposing recommendations to enhance adherence strategies.

Drug Attitude, Insight, and Patient's Knowledge About Prescribed Antipsychotics in Schizophrenia: A Cross-Sectional Survey

INTRODUCTION

While patients' perspectives toward pharmacotherapy are expected to be directly influenced by their motivation and understanding of the treatment that they are currently receiving, no study has comprehensively investigated the impact of insight into illness and knowledge for the ongoing pharmacotherapy on the attitude towards drug treatment among patients with schizophrenia.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

One hundred forty-eight Japanese outpatients diagnosed with schizophrenia, according to the International Classification of Diseases 10th edition, were included (mean±SD age, 47.3±12.4 years; 90 men (60.8%)). Attitudes toward antipsychotic treatment and insight into illness were assessed with the Drug Attitude Inventory-10 (DAI-10) and the VAGUS, respectively. In addition, a multiple-choice questionnaire that was designed to examine patients' knowledge about therapeutic effects, types, and implicated neurotransmitters of antipsychotic drugs they were receiving was utilized.

RESULTS

The mean±SD of DAI-10 score was 4.7±4.2. The multiple regression analysis found that lower Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) scores, higher VAGUS scores, and longer illness duration were significantly associated with higher DAI-10 scores (β=-0.226, P=0.009; β=0.250, P=0.008; β=0.203, P=0.034, respectively). There was a significant difference in the DAI-10 scores between the subjects who gave more accurate answers regarding the effects of their primary antipsychotic and those who did not (mean±SD, 5.57±4.38 vs 4.13±4.04, P=0.043); however, this finding failed to survive the multiple regression analysis.

CONCLUSION

Better insight into illness and treatment, lower illness severity, longer illness duration, and possibly greater knowledge about the therapeutic effects of medications may lead to better attitudes towards pharmacotherapy among patients with schizophrenia, which has an important implication for this typically chronic mental condition requiring long-term antipsychotic treatment to sustain stability.

Treatment Duration With Long-Acting Injectable Antipsychotics After In-hospital Initiation: A Retrospective Cohort Study

PURPOSE

Long-acting injectable (LAI) antipsychotics are recommended especially for patients with multiple admissions and poor adherence. The empirical basis of this strategy is a matter of debate.

METHODS

In a retrospective cohort study extending over 6 years, all patients admitted for inpatient treatment with a diagnosis of psychotic disorders according to International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, 10th Revision (F2) were screened for treatment episodes with a new start of an LAI. Indication for LAI treatment was based primarily on previous medication default. All-cause discontinuation was used as a measure of treatment efficiency. Patients with early dropout (termination of LAI treatment within 6 months) were compared with patients with longer treatment (treatment >6 months) for sociodemographic and treatment variables using bivariate and multivariate analyses.

RESULTS

A total of 194 treatment episodes with new start of LAIs were identified. Almost one half dropped out within 6 months (early dropout: n = 95 [49%]; mean duration, 2.2 months). Termination of treatment was mainly due to patients' refusal to continue. However, almost a third of patients (61; 31.4%) had a treatment duration of more than 2 years. In a multivariate Cox regression model, longer treatment duration was associated with older age (P = 0.05), not being single (P = 0.04), fewer admissions during the year preceding the index episode (P = 0.02), and better ratings for adherence at the index episode (P = 0.03).

CONCLUSIONS

There are both more patients than expected leaving the treatment early and more patients than expected staying for long periods, even among patients with a history of poor adherence.

The Promises and Challenges of Ecological Momentary Assessment in Schizophrenia: Development of an Initial Experimental Protocol

Severe mental illnesses, including schizophrenia and other psychotic-spectrum disorders, are a major cause of disability worldwide. Although efficacious pharmacological and psychosocial interventions have been developed for treating patients with schizophrenia, relapse rates are high and long-term recovery remains elusive for many individuals. Furthermore, little is still known about the underlying mechanisms of these illnesses. Thus, there is an urgent need to better understand the contextual factors that contribute to psychosis so that they can be better targeted in future interventions. Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) is a dynamic procedure that permits the measurement of variables in natural settings in real-time through the use of brief assessments delivered via mobile electronic devices (i.e., smart phones). One advantage of EMA is that it is less subject to retrospective memory biases and highly sensitive to fluctuating environmental factors. In the current article, we describe the research-to-date using EMA to better understand fluctuating symptoms and functioning in patients with schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders and potential applications to treatment. In addition, we describe a novel EMA protocol that we have been employing to study the outcomes of patients with schizophrenia following a hospital discharge. We also report the lessons we have learned thus far using EMA methods in this challenging clinical population.

A systematic review of factors influencing adherence to antipsychotic medication in schizophrenia-spectrum disorders

Adherence to antipsychotics improves outcome in schizophrenia. There is a lack of consensus on which factors most influence adherence behaviour and methodological issues hinder interpretation of existing evidence. A rigorous systematic search designed to identify robustly implicated factors emerging from methodologically rigorous studies narrowed our search to 13 observational studies (total N=6235) relating to adherence, antipsychotics and schizophrenia. Studies varied significantly, with reported adherence rates ranging from 47.2% to 95%. Positive attitude to medication and illness insight were the only factors consistently associated with better adherence, while contradictory results were found for socio-demographic characteristics, symptom severity and side effects. Only distinct aspects of the therapeutic relationship and social support in younger patients were related to good adherence. Antipsychotic type or formulation and neurocognitive functioning did not appear to impact medication adherence. Despite greater methodological rigour in determining studies to include in the present systematic review, it remains difficult to guide clinicians in this vital area and most of the work discussed contained small sample sizes. Future research in this field should therefore prioritise prospective study designs over longer periods and larger samples in naturalistic settings, providing a more appropriate and clinically meaningful framework than widely used cross-sectional designs.

Negative impact of self-stigmatization on attitude toward medication adherence in patients with psychosis

BACKGROUND

Up to 75% of patients suffering from schizophrenia do not take their antipsychotic medication in the way it is prescribed. Nonadherence has been shown to be associated with poorer therapy outcomes, higher hospitalization rates, and increased costs for health care systems. One important contributing factor to negative attitudes toward medication adherence may be self-stigmatization.

METHODS

23 inpatients with a schizophrenia spectrum disorder, all receiving antipsychotic treatment, were assessed for attitude toward medication adherence (using the Rating of Medication Influences [ROMI] scale), subjective well-being under medication (using the Subjective Well-Being under Neuroleptics Scale), and self-stigmatization (using the Internalized Stigma of Mental Illness Inventory). Multiple linear regression analyses were used to predict attitude toward medication adherence from demographic and clinical data and level of self-stigmatization.

RESULTS

Patients' gender and their level of self-stigmatization explained 29% of the variance in total attitude toward medication. Inclusion of the self-stigmatization subscore for alienation resulted in an increase of explained variance to 36%. Follow-up analyses of the ROMI pro-adherence subscale scores revealed no correlations with any assessed variables. In contrast, 70% of the variance in the ROMI nonadherence subscale scores was explained by greater alienation, higher number of experienced side effects, less subjective well-being under medication, and female gender.

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings imply that reducing the extent of self-stigmatization, especially the feeling of being alienated from society, could improve a negative attitude toward medication adherence in psychosis patients. Cognitive-behavioral therapy offers a variety of therapeutic strategies that could support patients in developing a more positive self-image and in more readily accepting antipsychotic medication as a tool for reaching personal life goals.

Patients' and clinicians' attitude towards long-acting depot antipsychotics in subjects with a first episode of psychosis

OBJECTIVES

The acceptance and use of long-acting depot antipsychotics has been shown to be influenced by the attitudes of patients and clinicians. Depot treatment rates are low across countries and especially patients with first-episode psychosis are rarely treated with depot medication. The aim of this article was to review the literature on patients' and clinicians' attitudes towards long-acting depot antipsychotics in subjects with first-episode psychosis.

METHODS

A systematic search of Medline, Embase, PsycINF and Google Scholar was conducted. Studies were included if they reported original data describing patients' and clinicians' attitudes towards long-acting depot antipsychotic in subjects with first-episode psychosis.

RESULTS

Six studies out of a total of 503 articles met the inclusion criteria. Four studies conveyed a negative and two a positive opinion of clinicians toward depot medication. No systematic study directly addressed the attitude of patients with first-episode psychosis. Psychiatrists frequently presume that patients with first-episode psychosis would not accept depot medication and that depots are mostly eligible for chronic patients.

CONCLUSIONS

Full information of all patients especially those with first episode psychosis in a therapeutic relationship that includes shared decision-making processes could reduce the negative image and stigmatization attached to depots.

Socio-demographic, clinical and treatment characteristics of relapsing schizophrenic patients

AIMS

To define the clinical profile of relapsing patients with schizophrenia attended in daily practice.

METHOD

Patients with schizophrenia/schizoaffective disorder admitted to short-stay/acute-care psychiatric units were eligible provided that data for the previous 3 years and for the next 12 months after discharge were collected.

RESULTS

Remarking features in 1646 patients (68% men) included low family support (34%), primary education (48%), schizophrenia as the main diagnosis (77%), duration of illness > 10 years (60%), mean number of previous hospitalizations of 2.74, non-adherence as the main reason of hospitalization (58.6%), treatment with a mean of two different antipsychotics and differences in adherence according to antipsychotic medication (P < 0.0001) (highest rates for depot atypical antipsychotics). The relapse rate was 38.6%. There were no differences in the number of relapsing patients according to antipsychotic drugs.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

The profile of relapsing schizophrenic patients may be defined as a male subject, aged 30-45 years, with primary education level, more than 10 years of disease' duration, low family support, moderately and severely ill, treated with multiple antipsychotic drugs, and poor to moderate adherence. Differences in relapse according to antipsychotic types were not observed but long-acting second generation antipsychotic drugs showed the highest percentage of maximum adherence.

Dosing frequency and adherence in chronic psychiatric disease: systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of dosing frequency on adherence in severe chronic psychiatric and neurological diseases.

METHODS

A systematic literature review was conducted for articles in English from medical databases. Diseases were schizophrenia, psychosis, epilepsy, bipolar disorder, and major depressive disorder.

RESULTS

Of 1420 abstracts screened, 12 studies were included. Adherence measures included Medication Event Monitoring System (MEMS(®)), medication possession ratio, medication persistence, and refill adherence. Three schizophrenia and one epilepsy study used MEMS, and all showed a trend towards higher adherence rates with less frequent dosing regimens. Three depression and one schizophrenia study used the medication possession ratio; the pooled odds ratio of being adherent was 89% higher (ie, 1.89, 95% credibility limits 1.71-2.09) on once-daily versus twice-daily dosing. Two studies in depression and one in all bupropion patients assessed medication persistence and refill adherence. The pooled odds ratio for the two depression studies using medication persistence was 2.10 (95% credibility limits 1.86-2.37) for once-daily versus twice-daily dosing. For refill adherence after 9 months, 65%-75% of patients on once-daily versus 56% on twice-daily dosing had at least one refill. In all but one of the studies using other measures of adherence, adherence rates were higher with once-daily dosing compared with more frequent dosing regimens. No relevant studies were identified for bipolar disorder or psychosis.

CONCLUSION

Differences in study design and adherence measures used across the studies were too large to allow pooling of all results. Despite these differences, there was a consistent trend of better adherence with less frequent dosing.

Medication adherence in schizophrenia

Non-adherence is a major problem in the treatment of schizophrenia. Its high prevalence, potentially severe consequences and associated costs make the study of this phenomenon a priority issue. In this article, basic non-adherence concepts of prevalence, consequences, evaluation methods, methodological restrictions of available studies, risk factors and intervention strategies, are reviewed. Studying non-adherence risk factors is a necessary step toward designing adequately oriented intervention strategies. An operative definition of adherence and good knowledge of its evaluation methods are essential to study this phenomenon. Unfortunately, most available studies contain methodological restrictions, especially concerning the evaluation methods, and an agreed operative definition of adherence has only very recently been reached. Knowing non-adherence risk factors, intervention strategies and available evidence on their effectiveness is essential in making treatment decisions in daily clinical practice.