Affective temperaments and psychotropic adherence.

Background: It is generally accepted that a range of factors affect adherence to psychotropic medications. In the present study, we focused on the influence of affective temperaments (i.e., depressive, hyperthymic, cyclothymic, irritable, and anxious temperaments) on treatment adherence.

Methods: Thirty-eight psychiatric consecutive inpatients were instructed to perform Temperament Evaluation of Memphis, Pisa, Paris, and San Diego-Autoquestionnaire version (TEMPS-A) for affective temperaments, Drug attitude inventory-10 (DAI-10) for concordance and persistence, and Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) for compliance.

Results: VAS scores for dose compliance were significantly and negatively associated with irritable temperament scores whereas DAI-10 scores were significantly and positively associated with male gender, depressive temperament scores and hyperthymic temperament scores.

Limitations: The main limitations of the study were the relatively small number of subjects and the lack of objective method of adherence.

Conclusions: These findings suggest that patients with irritable temperament may be poor in their compliance with treatment, and that more education may be required for patients with irritable temperament in order to maintain good compliance. In contrast, men and patients with depressive or hyperthymic temperament have a relatively positive attitude towards medication.