The Relationship Between Treatment Adherence and Social Support in Psychiatric Patients in the East of Turkey

This study was conducted to determine the relationship between the adherence to treatment and social support in psychiatric patients. The study was completed with a total of 324 psychiatric patients. The data gathering tools used were Demographics Questionnaire, Morisky Medication Adherence Scale and Multi-Dimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support. The study sample consisted of psychiatric patients who were selected from the population by using the simple random sampling method. Among the patients, 50.9% adhered to the treatment, and 14.5% did not. Patients living in city and country-town, with high income and living with family were found to have more social support. A positive, significant relationship was found among scales (p < 0.05). As the mean scores of social support increased, patients' adherence to treatment increased.