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Long-term effects of involuntary hospitalization on medication adherence, treatment engagement and perception of coercion

Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology volume 48, pages 1787–1796 (2013)Cite this article

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of the study was to examine the long-term influence of involuntary hospitalization on medication adherence, engagement in out-patient treatment and perceived coercion to treatment participation.

Methods

In a naturalistic observational multi-centre study, 290 voluntarily and 84 involuntarily hospitalized patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder had been followed up over a period of 2 years with half-yearly assessments. Assessments included self-rated medication adherence, externally judged medication adherence by blood levels, engagement in treatment and perceived coercion. The statistical analyses were based on multilevel hierarchical modelling of longitudinal data. Level and development of the outcome was controlled for involuntariness, for sociodemographic characteristics and clinical history.

Results

Involuntariness of the index-hospitalization did not have an effect on the development of treatment engagement or medication adherence judged by blood levels in the course of the follow-up period when the models were controlled for sociodemographic variables and clinical history. It was associated, though, with a continuously lower self-rated medication adherence. Moreover, former involuntarily hospitalized patients more often felt coerced in several treatment aspects at the follow-up assessments. Yet, there was no difference between the voluntary and involuntary group with regard to the development of the levels of adherence or coercion experiences over time.

Conclusions

Involuntary hospitalization does not seem to impair future treatment engagement in patients with schizophrenia, but formerly involuntarily hospitalized patients continue to be more sensitive to subjective or real coercion in their treatment and more vulnerable to medication non-adherence. Hereby, their risk of future involuntary hospitalization might be increased.

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Acknowledgments

The ELAN study was funded as an investigator-initiated research project by a grant from AstraZeneca Deutschland to the University of Tübingen (Project Nr. 229/2004V—Version 2, 27.09.04). AstraZeneca had no role in the development of the research questions, the design of the study, the collection, analyses and interpretation of data, and the writing of the manuscript. AstraZeneca had the right to comment on the final draft of the article before the submission to the journal. We wish to thank all participants who participated in the study. We also thank Heike Wiesner, Filiz Özfirat, Tanja Gieselmann and Simone Triem for data collection and data entry and Ildiko Baumgartner for her work in processing data.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy I, Ulm University, Zentrum für Psychiatrie Südwürttemberg, Versorgungsforschung, Weingartshofer Straße 2, 88214, Ravensburg, Germany

    Susanne Jaeger, Carmen Pfiffner & Tilman Steinert

  2. Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy II, Ulm University, BKH Günzburg, Germany

    Prisca Weiser, Reinhold Kilian & Thomas Becker

  3. Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany

    Gerhard Längle & Gerhard Eschweiler

  4. Zentrum für Psychiatrie Südwürttemberg, Klinik für Psychiatrie und Psychotherapie Zwiefalten, Zwiefalten, Germany

    Gerhard Längle & Daniela Croissant

  5. Department of Forensic Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Bezirksklinikum Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany

    Wiltrud Schepp

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  1. Susanne Jaeger
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  2. Carmen Pfiffner
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Correspondence to Susanne Jaeger.

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Jaeger, S., Pfiffner, C., Weiser, P. et al. Long-term effects of involuntary hospitalization on medication adherence, treatment engagement and perception of coercion. Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol 48, 1787–1796 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00127-013-0687-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00127-013-0687-x

Keywords

  • Involuntary hospitalization
  • Adherence
  • Treatment engagement
  • Schizophrenia