With the common relapse among patients suffering from Schizophrenia, this research sought to identify the most suitable intervention to increase medication adherence among patients taking antipsychotic medications and especially the difficult groups to treat. In this case, the study used the multifamily group (MFG) intervention with the incorporation of the theory of planned behavior to determine the possibility of increasing adherence to medication among the selected group. The Hypothesis of the research was that improved adherence to medication obtained through MFG is caused by three factors, namely, the change in patients’ attitudes, change in subjective social norms and the control of resources (Kopelowicz, et al., 2015). The study focused on a ‘difficult to treat’ population of 174 Mexican-Americans that had a history of noncompliance to medication.
To gain clarity in the problem, the research narrowed the problem area to by mediating randomized trials between the MFG-adherence group and the MFG standard group. The method brought into context the aspects of family influence, cultural themes, and social economic status in influencing adherence to mediation to the patients (Kopelowicz, et al., 2015). The study mediated the analysis by introducing the three TPB components to the MFG adherence group for a period of 12-month outpatient intervention period and an extra 12-month follow-up period. The tests included “not adherent”, “partial adherent”, and “always adherent”.
The research takes an experimental design. Citing the method used, the study isolated a specific group while manipulating the independent variables of the control group. Therefore, the study predicts the causation and the effect while eradicating the extraneous variables. The results highlighted that each of the TPB factors had a different effect on the victims’ medication compliance. In this case, the change in subjective norms had a substantial effect on treatment compliance. Behavior control, on the other hand, had no effect on improved compliance. Change in attitudes proved to have an effect on medication compliance but had insufficient evidence that the MFG adherence group improved their attitudes. Therefore, the study justified the hypothesis that the three TPB factors affected the adherence to medication with Subjective norms having the greatest effect (Kopelowicz, et al., 2015). Having identified a specific population and targeting a small number of processes, one of the study’s possible limitation would be the time factor whereby the control group has the potential of changing due to either cultural, family or medical reasons. There is also a possibility of part of the population dropping out of the experiment before end of the two years period.
References
Kopelowicz, A., Zarate, R., Wallace, C. J., Liberman, R. P., Mintz, J., " Lopez, S. R. (2015). Using the Theory of Planned Behavior to Improve Treatment Adherence. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 985-993.
