Investigating Delay in Treatment for First Symptoms of Psychosis Based on Demographic and Social Factors in Patients Referred to Farabi Hospital of Kermanshah (2015)

Background: Delay in treating thesymptomsof psychosis, both in terms of personalandfamily problemsandin terms of economic and social consequences, is of particular importance. The purpose of this study is to investigate demographic and social factors associated with delay in treatment for first symptoms of psychosis in order to better prepare the ground for its prevention. Methods: This is a descriptive cross-sectional study performed using a sequential samplingmethodonall patientswhoexperienced the first psychosis attack. Then, data are extracted from a clinical interview based on clinical checklist approved by specialists. Using SPSS software (V.25) descriptive statistics including frequency, mean and standard deviation were obtained, and also Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney tests were performed. Results: The obtained results showed that mean delay in treatment for first symptoms of psychosis was 48.5 65.6 weeks. There was a significant relationship between gender (P = 0.0353), age (P = 0.0198), father’s occupation (P = 0.0198), history of referral to the first therapist (P = 0.0059), and source of referral (P = 0.0497), on one hand, and delay in treatment for first symptoms of psychosis. Conclusions: The results of this study indicated that, with better understanding of demographic and social factors, besides educating families and doctors, it may be possible to help reducing the overall time of referral to a psychiatric services provider and thereby contribute to First treatment of the patients.