Factors affecting compliance with treatment in an outpatient child psychiatric practice: A retrospective study in a community mental health centre inAthens

Background: The literature review shows that treatment compliance in child psychiatric practice is a multifactorial issue that includes parameters suc h as the type of problem presented by the child, the family's functioning a nd the therapeutic team's organization and functioning. Methods: In order t o examine these parameters and their inter-relationship, epidemiological da ta from the files of 455 cases, representing the total number of cases admi tted to our Centre between 1990-1994, were collected. We noted that the maj ority of patients (58.6%) failed to comply with treatment. Results: The sta tistical analysis shows that the sex and age of the child, the socio-econom ic status of the family, the family's size, the parents' educational backgr ound as well as the referral source are unrelated to compliance. On the con trary, the type of problem presented by the child, the type of recommended treatment, the number of sessions attended and the season of admission are correlated with treatment compliance. Conclusions: Certain aspects of our t eam's techniques concerning the admission procedure, therapeutic contract a nd parental counselling have been re-examined and improved. Copyright(C) 20 00 S. Karger AG, Basel.