Psychiatric health care provider attitudes towards implantable medication

Medication nonadherence is a major problem in psychiatry. Introduction of implantable psychiatric medication could alleviate the need to take daily medication, significantly decreasing the rate of nonadherence. This survey assessed psychiatric health care professionals' opinions regarding implants. An email was sent to potential participants including an explanation of the study and a link to an online survey. Email addresses of faculty in the Department of Psychiatry were obtained from websites of United States medical schools. To assess which provider characteristics were most important in consideration of implants, logistic regression models were employed. For assessing which patient characteristics were associated with providers' opinions, logistic regression models using generalized estimating equations tested associations between patient factors and implant decision. Eighty-six percent of respondents supported implants for a subset of patients. Four provider characteristics influenced support for implants including type of work, caseload, percent of patients with schizophrenia and percent of patients with bipolar disorder. Seven patient characteristics significantly influenced provider opinions including illness severity, length of illness, medication compliance, diagnosis, type of medication, family support, and patient age. Although dozens of factors influence the future of implants, the surveyed population showed moderate to strong support for this novel treatment. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.