Adherence to treatment among adolescents in a psychiatric ward

Aims and objectives To examine the adolescent's adherence in psychiatric inpatient care that includes both medication and non‐pharmacological treatment. Background Adolescents can deny having a problem or being in need of treatment and are therefore prone to defying attempts to engage them in a collaborative treatment process. There is still little information in the literature concerning adherence to psychiatric inpatient treatment among mentally ill adolescents, especially focusing on the entire treatment period and all forms of treatment. Design This is a retrospective, mixed‐method study. Methods Data were collected from discharge reports written by doctors (n = 72) and were subjected to inductive content analysis. Adherence to all forms of treatment was considered, over the entirety of the treatment period rather than focusing on a single specific time point. Results Three main adherence‐related content categories were identified: non‐adherence to treatment, adherence to treatment and challenges of adherence. The last of these categories contains information on factors that affect adolescent treatment adherence. Conclusions We found that adherent adolescents are cooperative, willing to receive treatment and participate actively in therapies aimed at relieving their mental symptoms or illness. Relevance to clinical practice The findings presented herein are likely to be informative in the context of inpatient treatment, and it is expected that the results presented herein will help to improve adolescents' quality of treatment.