Real progress - the patient's perspective

Experience from a UK national telephone helpline SANELINE (run by the menta l health charity SANE), showed that availability and access to better medic ations and services are among the most important issues for patients with m ental illness. SANELINE, therefore, conducted a survey of patients' satisfa ction with antipsychotic medication between July 1998 and February 1999, A total of 202 completed questionnaires were available for analysis, A majori ty of patients (56%) were treated with conventional neuroleptics, 20% with new 'atypical' antipsychotics and 11% were on a combination of conventional and novel antipsychotics. Virtually all respondents (99%) reported sufferi ng from at least one side-effect, of which 31% were perceived as 'severe' o r 'very severe'. The most common side-effects reported were depressionnow m ood (90%), sedation (88%), difficulty in thinking/concentrating (78%), inso mnia (68%), dry mouth (65%), muscle/joint stiffness (45%), sexual dysfuncti on (43%) and weight gain (39%), Notably, 73% of those who had experienced w eight gain reported it to be 'quite or extremely distressing'. Depression w as rated as 'quite or extremely distressing' by 67% of sufferers and insomn ia was similarly rated by 66% of patients. Despite the methodological limit ations of the survey, the results suggest there is a high level of patient dissatisfaction and distress related to the currently available medications , which may have unfavourable effects on compliance and treatment outcome. (C) 2001 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.