The Pattern of Adherence in Patients with Bipolar I Disorder; an Eight Weeks Study

Objectives: non-adherence limits the effectiveness of medications among patients withbipolar disorder. many studies have investigated the predicting factors of non-adherence. thispaper aims to present the pattern of adherence in patients with bipolar i disorder (bid).methods: seventy six patients with bid enrolled in a prospective study. the medicationpossession ratio (mpr) was used to evaluate patients' adherence to medications, and repeatedmeasure analysis was performed to reveal the pattern of variations. a persian translation ofdrug attitude inventory (dai-10) (shortened version) was used to assess the attitude ofpatients toward medications.results: the repeated measure analysis revealed that the adherence to medicationssuccessively decreased (p<0.001). age, gender, marital status, educational level, comorbidsubstance abuse did not alter the pattern.conclusion: there is a decreasing pattern in the adherence to medications among bidpatients, regardless of known predicting factors of non-adherence. it means even fully adherentpatients could potentially become non-adherents during the course of maintenance treatment.