The investigators conducted a pilot study in which physicians evaluated five or fewer patients with schizophrenia by indicating "Yes" or "No" on a sample survey that asked whether the patient possessed any of 10 attributes associated with adherence issues. The physicians were also asked to rank the attributes in importance from most important (1) to least (10).
Before national distribution, the survey was revised to include eight factors with no ranking system and asking for information on 10 or fewer patients per clinician. The authors used chi-square testing to identify regional differences.
A total of 3,156 physicians and other clinicians were surveyed, including 134 in the pilot study and 3,022 in the national roll-out.
In all, 61 (46%) of the pilot program physicians returned surveys, and data on 309 patients collected from these physicians revealed that "poor insight into illness" was the most common reason given for nonadherence, reported for 74% of patients.
