In this 6-month cohort study, 1500 outpatients who visited 10 psychiatrist's offices in the Iranian city of Kermanshah were recruited and followed for 2 years (2009-2011) for recommended treatments including admission to hospital, pharmacotherapy, psychotherapy and a combination of both psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy. Characteristics of patients who dropped out of the current study were collected, and reasons for dropping out were collected via phone or in person interview.
Dropouts were prevalent in prescribed treatments. Pretreatment (primary) dropout rates in psychotherapy treatment were 4 times greater than dropout rates in pharmacotherapy treatment (80 % and 20 % , respectively). There were significance differences between dropouts and non-dropouts of pharmacotherapy with respect to patient characteristics; younger age, male gender, low level of education, unemployment, lack of insurance, new cases and divorce were more prevalent among dropouts (
Patient dropout is a common problem in outpatient psychiatric treatment, particularly in psychotherapy treatment. Further research on reasons for dropping out and strategies to reduce rates of dropouts is recommended.