Compliance with depot antipsychotic medication by patients attending outpatient clinics

Outpatients with schizophrenia often have problems complying with a regimen of oral antipsychotic medications. Use of depot medications improves compliance, but patients' geographic location and access to transportation may affect compliance with a depot regimen. The authors used retrospective chart review to examine whether patients' geographic location and sociodemographic characteristics and characteristics of their medication use were related to compliance with a depot regimen. The subjects were 75 patients attending an urban clinic and 23 patients attending a rural clinic in New York State. Median rates of compliance were 94.7 percent for the urban patients and 96.4 percent for the rural patients, not a significant difference. The only characteristic associated with a decreased compliance rate was a history of substance abuse.