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PROBLEM STATEMENT -A study to assess the effectiveness of structured teaching program on knowledge regarding medication adherence among caretakers ofschizophrenic patient coming to outpatient department at tertiary care hospital of the city? BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY Medication adherence is the first and main determinant of treatment success. Non adherence is a multi-factorial phenomenon that can result from five major interacting factors. These are health team and health system-related factors; patient-related factors; therapy related factors; socio-economic factors; and condition-related factors. The prevalence of non adherence in mental illness was found to be 40% to 60% worldwide. The most important and highly encountered form of medication non adherence is where a patient does not follow the recommended dose and frequency. The ratio of non adherence has been reported as 40%- 60% for antipsychotics. Moreover, in studies evaluating medication adherence based on diagnosis, the ratio of non adherence to medication has been shown to be 11%-80% in patients with schizophrenia. MATERIALS AND METHODS The Research Method adopted for the present study is Quasi-experimental Approach, which is quantitative research design. Non probability convenient sampling technique is used. The study is aimed at assessing the effectiveness of structured teaching program knowledge regarding medication adherence among the caretakers of schizophrenic patient and determining its effectiveness statistically. Sample size is 60. Self- structured questionnaire was used as tool. RESULT In pretest, 16.7% of the caretakers of schizophrenic patient coming to psychiatric outpatient department of tertiary care hospital had poor knowledge (Score 0-8) and 71.7% of them had average knowledge (score 9-16) and 11.7% of them had good knowledge (score 17-25) regarding the medication adherence. In posttest, 1.7% of the caretakers of schizophrenic patient coming to psychiatric outpatient department of tertiary care hospital had average 10 knowledge (Score 9-16) and 98.3% of them had good knowledge (score 17-25) regarding the medication adherence. CONCLUSION The findings of the study suggest that the caretakers had inadequate knowledge about medication adherence during pre-test and there is significant increase knowledge regarding medication adherence after administration of structured teaching program. The present study also states that there is no significant association between knowledge regarding promotion of mental health and prevention of mental illness and demographic variables like age, gender, area of residence, type of family .This study could help in bringing about awareness on promotion of mental health and prevention of mental illness, leading to a healthy life ahead. The result shoes that the demographic variables like relationship with the patient, occupation and total monthly income were found to have significant association with the knowledge regarding medication adherence among caretakers of schizophrenic patient coming to psychiatric outpatient department of the tertiary care hospital. The study could help to improve the knowledge regarding medication adherence and prevent relapse of illness.