Patients not warned about side effects of psychiatric drugs
Patients are often not warned about the side effects
of psychiatric drugs prescribed by their doctors, says the mental health
charity Mind.
Patients with mental health problems are encouraged
by Mind to report adverse side effects to psychiatric drugs through the
charity’s own yellow card scheme. Mind analysed 502 reports sent in by
patients between March and July this year and found that 61 per cent of
respondents said that they had not been given enough information about
their drugs’ side effects. In addition, 63 per cent of respondents reported
that they decided to stop taking their medicines, mainly because of unacceptable
side effects. The analysis revealed that the psychiatric drugs most commonly
reported were the older anti-psychotics (22 per cent of all side effects
reported), selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor antidepressants (18
per cent), atypical antipsychotics (14 per cent), and antimanic drugs
(13 per cent).
Mind launched its yellow card scheme in 1995 in
response, it says, to under-reporting of side effects via the Committee
on Safety of Medicines’ yellow card scheme (PJ, 27 May 1995, p717).
The charity’s scheme allows patients to report their own reactions to
drugs, which are then passed on to the CSM.
Back to Top
|
