Assessment of the Latent Adverse Events of Antipsychotic Treatment Using a Subjective Questionnaire in Japanese Patients with Schizophrenia

Objective: The adverse effects of antipsychotic agents can have a marked influence on medication adherence. In this study, we.

Methods: Data were collected by interviewing patients using a subjective questionnaire, and the associations between unreported symptoms and background factors were investigated.

Results: A total of 306 patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder were examined. Their major symptoms were daytime sleepiness (50.0%), weight gain (42.2%), and sexual dysfunction (38.9%). Sexual dysfunction was nominal significantly more common among the patients that had been treated with antipsychotic agent polypharmacy (odds ratio [OR], 2.14; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.07 to 4.30), and was nominal significantly more common among outpatients (OR, 1.78; 95% CI, 1.02 to 3.13). Only approximately 30% of the patients had reported their symptoms to their physicians.

Conclusion: Patients receiving antipsychotic treatment tolerate some symptoms and do not feel able to report them to their physicians. The most common reason for this is an insufficient patient-physician relationship. Sexual dysfunction is especially hard to identify because it is a delicate problem, and our findings demonstrate that subjective questionnaires are helpful for detecting such symptoms.