Adherence to pharmacotherapy in bipolar disorder patients with and without co-occurring substance use disorders.

Objective: To examine patterns of adherence to mood stabilizers and reasons for nonadherence in patients with bipolar disorder, with and without substance use disorder (SUD).

Method: From December 2003 to October 2004, 115 patients with DSM-IV-diagnosed bipolar disorder (58 with SUD and 57 without SUD) were administered a structured interview regarding their lifetime experience with mood stabilizers.

Results: Lifetime adherence with mood stabilizers for the SUD group was 65.