The effects of a psychiatric patient education to medication program on post-discharge compliance

The effect of a structured program of education on subsequent psychiatric patient compliance with medication-taking was investigated. The subjects consisted of 150 hospitalized patients housed on four acute-care receiving wards and ready for discharge from Fallsview Psychiatric Hospital in Ohio. They were randomly assigned to one of three groups. Results indicated that subjects who received written information with verbal reinforcement were significantly more compliant than the control subjects. These findings suggest that, if the hand-out is discussed with them, the patients given medication handouts similar to those used in the study will comply with medication-taking after discharge at a higher rate than those given no hand-out. Implications of these findings for increased psychiatric patients' post-discharge compliance with medications are discussed.