Objective: The study was aimed to evaluate the gender specific response to adherence and occurrence of side effects among schizophrenic patients in Lahore, Pakistan.
Methods: A prospective study was performed for a period of 1 year among 180 newly diagnosed schizophrenics, aged 20-60 years to observe the symptoms, medication adherence and side effects. Morisky-Green-Levine Scale was used to evaluate medication adherence, LUNSER for side effects and PANSS to measure positive and negative symptoms. Data were analyzed using SPSS.
Results: Positive symptoms (Male: Baseline 36.14 vs. endpoint 23.58, Female: 35.29 vs. 23.74) and negative symptoms (Males 27.9 vs. 20.05, Females 28.41 vs. 20.2) of schizophrenia were equally reduced after a follow up of 1 year in both the genders. Male population suffered more accumulative side effects (11.4 in males vs. 6.40 in females), extrapyramidal symptoms such as tardive dyskinesia and tremors (1.21 in males vs. 0.57 in females) and other side effects as compared to women (p ≤ .005). Males were found poorly adherent to antipsychotic treatment than females (93.3% in males vs. 6.7% in females (p ≤ .005).
Conclusions: Prescribing practices should not overlook sex specific factors like hormonal changes, altered brain morphology and socioeconomic factors that may be responsible for the difference in the response to the course of schizophrenia.
Keywords: Schizophrenia; adherence; females; males; side effects.