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What you don't know won't hurt you

Information given to patients about the side-effects of antipsychotic drugs

Institute of Psychiatry, De Crespigny Park, London SE5 8AF

Max Henderson, Senior House Officer

Maudsley Hospital, Denmark Hill, London SE5 8AZ

AIMS AND METHOD

Information given to patients about side-effects of their medication plays a key role in future adherence. It is possible that when antipsychotic medication is prescribed routinely, insufficient information is given to them. In order to investigate the amount of information doctors feel they need to give to patients when they are prescribing conventional antipsychotic medication, all the clinical doctors at a large mental health trust were surveyed by anonymous questionnaire.

RESULTS

Overall, doctors said they gave large amounts of information to patients about possible side-effects of anti-psychotic drugs, but some side-effects we discussed far more frequently than others.

CONCLUSIONS

The selectivity of information given to patients appears to reflect the doctors perception of what is important. This might not correlate with what the patient may wish to be told. Discussions with patients about side-effects may need to be more comprehensive than they currently are.

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