Bipolar Disorder and Locus of Control: Implications for Treatment Compliance

Theoretically, a paradigm shift in the 1960s made community-based care and out-patient treatment an acceptable alternative to institutionalization of the chronically mentally ill. Utilizing the Levenson Multidimensional Locus of Control Scale for Psychiatric Patients, the author conducted a causal-comparative study to determine if a link exists between having bipolar disorder, a chronic mental illness, and an external locus of control, a link which might explain the inability of this population to maintain their optimal level of mental health utilizing the out-patient treatment model. Though the study failed to demonstrate any significant differences in external measures of loci of control between the control group and the bipolar disorder group, it also fa1iled to demonstrate a significant difference in measure between the groups on the internality scale. This leads the researcher to further hypothesize that the solution to improving out-patient treatment compliance may lie in strengthening and reinforcing the patient\u27s internality rather than focusing on significant measures of externality found in several other researchers\u27 findings. Additionally, the author provides a view of bipolar disorder and the barriers which conflict with activities of daily living and health maintenance for this population