Purpose: Increasing awareness exists of schizophrenia consumers’ “partial compliance” with antipsychotic medications. Taking these medications erratically, or not at all, reduces the consumer’s ability to manage symptoms and achieve personal social, educational, and vocational goals. The purpose of this presentation is to report pattern profiles of schizophrenia consumers’ experiences with anti-psychotic medications and how these experiences affect their recovery efforts and relationships with health care providers.
Theoretical /Conceptual Framework: Pattern Profiles of schizophrenia consumers’ experiences with antipsychotic medications were constructed from a subset of a larger study of family life with a member diagnosed with schizophrenia. The original study was conducted using the Unitary Field Pattern Profile method (Butcher, 1994, 1998), a method based in Rogers’ Science of Unitary Human Beings.
Participants: Six single adult male schizophrenia consumers who were prescribed antipsychotic medications participated. Four of the six lived independently, one lived with his mother, and one lived in a group home.
Method: In-person, open-ended interviews were conducted and audio taped. While synthesizing personal pattern profiles from interview transcripts, themes related to experiences and attitudes toward antipsychotic medications emerged.
Results: Consumers’ experiences with antipsychotic medications were primarily negative. Noxious side-effects from older or “typical” antipsychotic medications were frequently reported, including sedation, stiffness, difficulty thinking, unusual gait, and altered physical appearance. While the newer, or “atypical”, antipsychotic medications generated fewer specific complaints, some clients reported distressing medication-related weight gain. No consumer reported absence of symptoms even when taking medications conscientiously. Auditory hallucinations continued unabated, but consumers reported an increased ability to tolerate the “voices”. Dread of increased dosages or the addition of more medications precluded consumers from reporting any symptom increase or reoccurrence with their psychiatrist or therapist.
Conclusions: Increased awareness of consumers’ past experiences with antipsychotic medications and effects on current “compliance” will aid psychiatric nurses work with these individuals.
Session #1194 - Mental Health: Practice Issues
The 29th Annual MNRS Research Conference (April 1-4, 2005)