News Archive

"Why have I never been asked about side effects before?" is one of the comments made to Master of Pharmacy students involved in a big study - My Medicines and Me - looking at the side-effects of medications on mental health  patients.

These side-effects - which may include weight gain, impotence, insomnia, chronic sedation and lack of ability to concentrate and function in daily activities - are so intolerable that they may cause up to 80 per cent of mental health consumers to abandon treatment.

Yet the treatment of serious mental health disorders almost always involves the use of psychotropic medications which allows the patient to return to some degree of functionality.

The six students, from the School of Medicine and Pharmacology, helped administer questionnaires to 200 mental health consumers across six clinics in Perth's North Metropolitan Health Services (NMHS).

The consumers were asked to fill out a questionnaire designed to gain insight into their subjective experience of side-effects across a wide spectrum of mental health illnesses of different severities.

The questionnaire is part of a PhD thesis by Assistant Professor Deena Ashoorian, who is co-supervised by UWA's Professor Rhonda Clifford, Director of Pharmacy, NMHS Mental Health Professor Daniel Rock and Clinical Professor Rowan Davidson.

"Identification of side-effects through improved communication between clinicians and consumers can have a marked impact on treatment adherence," Professor Clifford said.

The next phase of the study is a three-month follow-up with consumers and their clinicians.

"The study aims to prove that this questionnaire will help clinicians to better understand consumers' attitudes to psychiatric therapy and ultimately to achieve shared partnership in the treatment and recovery process," Professor Clifford said.

The study is funded by UWA, Pharmaceutical Society of WA, Mental Health Commission of WA and the Richmond Fellowship WA.