Background: Management of bipolar disorder include acute management aimed at reducing acute symptoms and maintenance management aimed to reduce the possibility of relapse and to reduce the risk of suicide by addressing incomplete remission, quality of life and functional impairment. Adherence to medication is a problem in bipolar disorder which contributes substantially to efficacy effectiveness gap and the burden of morbidity and mortality of the illness.

Aims: To find prevalence of non adherence to treatment in patients of bipolar affective disorder.

Materials & Methods: This is a cross-sectional study which was conducted on patients with bipolar affective disorder attending the outpatient department (OPD) of Government Psychiatric Diseases Hospital, Jammu. After meeting inclusion and exclusion criteria, total of 109 patients were selected for the study. Various parameters like age, sex, education, marital status etc were collected. A patient is said to be non adherent to treatment if skips more 3 doses in month and adherent if skips less 3 doses in a month.

Results: Prevalence of non adherence to treatment among the bipolar patients was 59.6%. About 76.5% patients below 20 years of age, 61.8% males, 65.8% from rural areas, 75% uneducated, 76.6% unemployed and 64.9% married patients were non adherent to treatment. Patients who had parents as their caretakers had lower rates whereas those belonging to lower socioeconomic class had higher rates of non adherence.

Conclusion: There is high prevalence of non adherence among patients suffering from bipolar affective disorder which may affect the treatment outcome and management of these patients and thus it is suggested that better health education to these patients and their attendants should be given in order to maintain compliance to treatment and prevention of relapses.

Keywords: BPAD, Non Adherence, Prevalence.

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Dr Gaurav S Manhas MBBS,MD

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