The prescription of typical and atypical antipsychotic drugs to people with schizophrenia: relationships between advice,information, choice and the type of drug prescribed.

Objectives: This study examines the relationship
between type of antipsychotic drug prescribed
(‘typical’/’atypical’) to people with schizophrenia
and information and opportunity for discussion
provided by the prescribing health professional.
Design: This study employs a correlational
design with categorical variables obtained from
questionnaire responses.
Method: The data reported here comes from a
large national survey (n = 2663) of mental health
service users (with a range of diagnoses) and
carers conducted by Mind, the Manic Depression
Fellowship and the National Schizophrenia
Fellowship in 2000 to collect information about
experiences of the mental healthcare system.
This report focuses on responses from service
users with a diagnosis of schizophrenia, who
indicated that they were currently taking an
antipsychotic as their main medicine (n = 525), to
questions about written information and verbal
advice about prescribed drugs and also
involvement with choice of treatment.
Results: Chi-square tests with post-hoc analyses
indicate an association between written
information, verbal advice & involvement with
choice of treatment with the prescription of
‘atypical’ antipsychotic drugs.
Conclusions: Prescription of ‘atypical’
antipsychotics, which often result in less severe
side-effects than ‘typical’ antipsychotic drugs, is
frequently associated with service user choice
and information. Whether this finding is an
indicator of resource limitation or variation in
mental healthcare practice should be the subject
of further investigation.

The 2002 Annual Conference in parallel with the Division of Clinical Psychology Conference and the Student Members Group Conference, Blackpool, 13–16 March 2002.