18 Oct Antipsychotics: Financial Incentives to Improve Medication Adherence
MedicalResearch.com Interview with
Professor Stefan Priebe, Dipl.-Psych., Dr. med. habil., FRCPsych
Unit for Social and Community Psychiatry
WHO Collaborating Centre for Mental Health Services Development
Queen Mary, University of London
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?
Answer: Offering modest financial incentives can help patients to achieve better adherence to anti-psychotic maintenance medication.
MedicalResearch.com: Were any of the findings unexpected?
Answer: We did hypothesise that offering incentives may be effective, but did not necessarily expect the extent of the effect and some of the very positive feed back of patients about how the incentives initiated a much better therapeutic relationship.
MedicalResearch.com: What should clinicians and patients take away from your report?
Answer: That offering modest financial incentives is an effective option for improving adherence to anti-psychotic maintenance medication.
MedicalResearch.com: What recommendations do you have for future research as a result of this study?
Answer: We need to study the long term effects of offering financial incentives in this patient group. Further research should be done on how to use incentives – financial or otherwise – to achieve adherence to important treatments across medicine in general and mental health in particular.
Last Updated on October 18, 2013 by Marie Benz MD FAAD