Treatment compliance among psychiatric outpatients in Kenya

One hundred psychiatric outpatients discharged from mental hospital in Kenya were studied to estimate the treatment compliance after 3 months. The relatives and patients were interviewed separately to assess treatment adherence; 55 percent of them had defaulted in their treatment. Various factors were responsible for failure of compliance which included amongst many: unavailability of drugs which appears to be a common factor in Third World countries. Suggestions for better compliance included easily available injectable depot preparations or simple generic psychotropic drugs.