Study on patient dropout and non-adherence to mental health treatment in Psychosocial Care Centers

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the reasons why users who were registered in Psychosocial Care Centers type III of Campinas-SP during a census of services were not located and identify and characterize those who had abandoned or not adhered to treatment. This is a cross-sectional, analytical, documentary-based study that used field diaries and users' medical records. Among users who had not been located, 17.8% (n = 70) had abandoned or not adhered to treatment. Most of these were men, with a mean age of 39.9 years (SD = 13.7), whose most frequent diagnosis was schizophrenia. Regarding length of attending it was found that users had attended more than 1 year or less than 1 month in the services. It is noteworthy that, initially, 40.3% of the investigated cases had been reported as discharges while at the end of the study it was observed that only 2.5% of the cases covered truly clinical discharges. Thus, it was identified that besides the lack of data in the medical records, the practice of administrative discharge makes it difficult to identify cases of abandonment or non-adherence to treatment, thus impairing the systematization of data about continuity of care.