Patient Preference and Adherence

Treatment non-adherence in psychiatric disorders: conceptual and clinical aspects

About half or more of the patients with chronic psychiatric illnesses either do not take medications correctly, miss appointments, or drop out from psychotherapy. Rates of non-adherence have remained relatively unchanged over the years despite the introduction of newer treatments. However, there has been a gradual shift from an illness-centered to a patient-centered approach to adherence in psychiatry. This shift has been propelled by the inability of demographic and clinical factors to fully explain non-adherence, the emergence of health-behavior theories, a move away from earlier compliance-based models to those that place greater emphasis on collaborative relationships between patients and clinicians, and the growing use of psychosocial treatments in the management of non-adherence. This collection includes articles that focus on concepts, extent, consequences, detection, prediction, and management of non-adherence in various psychiatric disorders.