Key Takeaways
Extended Takeaways
- In this 232-patient outpatient sample, overall adherence was 74.1% (MARS score: 6–10; 95% CI, 68.1–79.3%), so self-reported adherence was relatively high despite clear dislikes for certain tablet features.
- Patients expressed stronger aversion to some dosage-form attributes than preference for others, with dislikes most often directed at large sizes (53.4%), flat-circular shapes (40.5%), and red colors (33.6%); these features may still affect acceptability even when adherence is unchanged.
- The observed associations between tablet attributes and adherence were small, with all P > .05, χ2 = 1.90–4.64, and Cramér’s V = 0.09–0.14, suggesting that changing shape, size, or color alone is unlikely to produce a meaningful adherence benefit in routine psychiatric outpatient care.
- Clinical variables also were not associated with adherence in this dataset (P = .081 to P = .760), indicating that unmeasured factors such as insight, stigma, side-effect concerns, and therapeutic alliance may be more informative targets during adherence assessment.
- Because adherence was measured with the self-reported 10-item MARS and prior validation studies cited only moderate concordance with objective measures (ĸ=0.4–0.6), clinicians should be cautious about relying on questionnaire scores alone when adherence concerns persist.
