TITLE:
A Comparison of Quality of Life, Medication Side-Effect and Adherence among Schizophrenia Patients on Conventional versus Atypical Antipsychotics
AUTHORS:
Fawaz Babandi, Umar Musa Usman, Zahraddeen Garba Habib, Desola Shakirat Owolabi, Mustapha Ibrahim Gudaji, Aminu Abdullahi Taura, Chikaodiri Nkeweurem Aghukwa, Abubakar Sulaiman Baguda, Auwalu Sani Salihu
KEYWORDS:
Schizophrenia, Antipsychotics, Quality of Life, Medication Adherence
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Psychiatry,
Vol.13 No.2,
April
18,
2023
ABSTRACT: Quality
of life (QoL) is becoming a widely accepted schizophrenia management outcome.
But it is still not very clear if there are any significant differences between
the conventional and atypical antipsychotics in terms of QoL improvement among
people with schizophrenia (PWS). It is also imperative that antipsychotic
drug-related factors, such as medication adherence and side-effect, which could
directly or indirectly affect the QoL of PWS, are determined and compared among
PWS on different classes of the drugs. Data were collected on Socio-demographic
Characteristics, Quality of Life and Medication adherence using
Socio-demographic and Schizophrenia Clinical Characteristics questionnaire,
World Health Organization Quality of Life (WHOQoL)-Brief,
and Morisky Medication Adherence Scale (MMAS) respectively from 250 respondents
attending a tertiary health center’s Psychiatric clinic in Kano, Nigeria.
Although PWS on the two classes of antipsychotic drugs showed inequalities in
different aspects and domains of QoL, as well as in the levels of adherence and
side-effects, the differences were all insignificant. However, presence of drug
side effects was significantly associated with lower health-related QoL in the
conventional antipsychotics group (p = 0.001), and lower score in the physical
domain of QoL in the atypical antipsychotics group (p = 0.044). Medication
adherence was found to be associated with better scores in different domains of
QoL in both groups of PWS. There are no significant differences in terms of
QoL, medication side-effect and adherence among PWS on the two classes of
antipsychotics. However, drug side-effects and adherence were significantly and
respectively associated with lower and higher scores in different domains of
QoL in both groups.