Enhancing case managers' skills in the assessment and management of antipsychotic medication side-effects

Objective: Our goal was to reduce the prevalence of antipsychotic medicatio n side-effects by providing a short-term training program on the assessment and management of side-effects to case managers. Method: Forty-four patients in receipt of community-based mental health ser vices were allocated to comparison (n = 20) and intervention (n = 24) group s based on the health service district in which they resided. While case ma nagers working with the intervention group attended a short-term training p rogram to improve their assessment and management of neuroleptic side-effec ts, case managers providing services to the comparison group received no ad ditional training. Side-effects were assessed pre- and postintervention usi ng the Liverpool University Neuroleptic Side-effect Rating Scale (LUNSERS). Results: A reduction in the overall prevalence of side-effects in both grou ps was observed, however, only those patients in the intervention group rep orted a statistically significant reduction in mean side-effect scores betw een the pre- and post-measures (Wilcoxon Matched Pairs Signed-ranks Test, z = -2.8411, two-tailed, p < 0.01). In addition, qualitative data collected during the second survey revealed that patients in the intervention group h ad acquired some positive management strategies for dealing with unwanted s ide-effects. The strategies were elicited from eight different patients dis tributed across six of the 12 case managers who took part in the training p rogram. Conclusions: Training cases managers in the assessment and management of si de-effects may help to reduce their impact on the lives of people prescribe d neuroleptic medication.