Prevalance Of Side Effects Of Typical Antipsychotic Medications Among Patients Admitted To The Psychiatry Unit Of Kampla International University Teaching Hospital, Uganda

Abstract

Antipsychotic medications are used to treat certain mental disorders according to the indications

of a given antipsychotic. These medications are associated with several side effects. The use of

antipsychotic medications therefore, entails a difficult trade-off between the benefit of alleviating

psychotic symptoms and the risk of troubling, sometimes life-shortening adverse effects.(Michael

D, 2011)

A cross sectional study was conducted at the psychiatric department to determine the prevalence of the

antipsychotic drugs side effects among the psychiatric patient at KIUTH.

A random sample design was used to produce data representative of all patients admitted to KIUTH

between January 2013 and December 2013. At the first stage, all the patients admitted were recorded from number one to number 198 using excel, and, at the second stage, a sample of 45 patients was drawn randomly using excel 2010 program. The eligible patients were followed in the register according to their number.

This found out that that the most affected patients by their socio-demographic characteristics were

the age groups of 18-35, 11(68.7%), Females 14 (58.3%), and those who has stopped at primary

levels of education 11 (68.7%), and that the prevalence of antipsychotic drug side effects was

53.5%, most of the side effects experienced by the patients were sedations 12(48%) and the most

common comorbidity associated with developing side effects was HIV.

The study concluded that there was a very high prevalence of the side effects of antipsychotic

medication at KIUTH psychiatric department and that the most common sociodemographic

characteristics associated with that were being a female of low socialdemogrpahic status.

Finally, the study has recommended that: the hospital should evaluate all psychiatric patients for

possible use of traditional medications alongside the conventional treatments to reduce the burden

of side effects and that the hospital should emphasize proper counselling, education and early

diagnosis and treatment of the side effects and directly observed treatment should be adapt to

maximize the benefit of antipsychotics medications and home visiting by a psychiatric nurse should be encouraged to follow up patients progress and adherence to antipsychotic drugs.