Bipolar disorder (BD) is a chronic and recurrent illness that occurs in 1,5% of the population. This illness is associated with high rates of mortality and social/economic burden. Lithium, carbamazepine and valproic acid are the most used mood stabilizers. In long term treatments, as in BD, one of the main difficulties is the patient's adherence. It appears that factors associated to the patient, drug and the physician are responsible for the low adherence. The use of psycho-education, cognitive-behavioral therapy and focused family therapy have been put forward as a means to increase adherence.
Bipolar disorder; adherence; treatment
