Narrator: This is Science Today. Schizophrenia, which is associated with delusions and hallucinations, is one of the most severe forms of mental illness. And while there are effective drugs to treat the disease, psychiatrist Dilip Jeste of the University of California, San Diego, says only 41 percent of schizophrenia patients regularly take their antipsychotic medications.

Jeste: We looked at not only how common the non-adherence was, but also what are the risk factors associated with it and what are the consequences, including the effects of cost of care.

Narrator: Not only does the cost of psychiatric hospitalization increase, but Jeste says medical hospitalization is much more common in patients who stop taking their medication.

Jeste: What is needed is really attention to the psychosocial resources. Without that, just having the medications is not going to work. The medications are useful, but what good they are if patients don’t take them. So really what is needed is a broad based, psychosocially based intervention system.

Narrator: For Science Today, I’m Larissa Branin.