Data from the United States Schizophrenia Care and Assessment Program (US-SCAP), a 1997‑2003 study of schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, and schizophreniform disorder, were analyzed.
- Of 2327 US-SCAP participants, 2010 (86.4%) had health care resource utilization for 1 year after study enrollment and comprised the analytic sample.
Antipsychotic medication use and adherence levels were derived from prescription information in patients’ medical records.
MPR with any antipsychotic in the 6 months prior to enrollment was used to categorize patients as: adherent (MPR ≥80%, n=1758), partially adherent (MPR ≥60% to <80%, n=36), or nonadherent (MPR <60%, n=216).
Mental health resource utilization during the 1 year following study enrollment was systematically abstracted from medical records.
During the 1 year following enrollment, adherent patients in the 6 months prior to enrollment were significantly less likely to have a psychiatric hospitalization (17.1%) compared with partially adherent (30.6%) and nonadherent patients (29.6%) (P<0.05).
Adherent participants also had about half as many inpatient admissions (0.28 vs 0.64 and 0.55[P<0.05 adherent vs partially and vs nonadherent]), and fewer total days hospitalized (8.8 vs 32.0 and 17.6 days).[P<0.05 adherent vs partially adherent and vs nonadherent]
Reference:
Ascher-Svanum H, Zhu B, Faries DE, Furiak NM, Montgomery W. Medication adherence levels and differential use of mental-health services in the treatment of schizophrenia. BMC Res Notes. 2009; 2:6.