Background
Prevalence of side effects
Antipsychotic medication has been associated with a range of
side effects but the nature, extent and severity of these varies
widely, and they may be gender- (Weiss et al. 2005) and agespecific
(Bouman & Pinner 2002, Haddad & Sharma 2007).
In a literature review of pharmacological challenges in the
treatment of long-term schizophrenia, McEnany (2007)
noted the trade-off between symptoms and side effects.
Typical antipsychotics are effective in reducing ‘positive’
symptoms, such as delusions, but have little or no effect on
‘negative’ symptoms like anhedonia and flattening of affect.
The newer atypical medication antipsychotics are more
effective in managing negative symptoms and lead to fewer
extrapyramidal side effects, but in turn are more likely to be
accompanied by side effects such as weight gain, dyslipidaemias
and cardiac changes. Liu-Seifert et al. (2005) pointed
out that in practice the incidence and significance of weight
gain may be greater than reported in clinical trials because of
the relatively short-term nature of trials. Anderson et al.
(n.d.) noted similar concerns with the use of atypical
medications for treating bipolar disorder. Moreover, it is
deceptive to consider atypical medication medications as a
homogeneous group of drugs, which, in turn, has implications
for the range, severity and prevalence of side effects they
produce (Haddad & Sharma 2007).