Common Side Effects and Managing Them for Psychiatric Mental Health Patient

Managing Side Effects Across the Lifespan Term Paper
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Individuals diagnosed with mental health issues such as schizophrenia, psychosis, bipolar, and schizoaffective disorders are constantly prescribed antipsychotic medications. Antipsychotic drugs, including antidepressants play a crucial role in treatment and subsequent recuperation of individuals with mental health illnesses and conditions. In many dimensions, antipsychotic drugs are conceptualized as a first-line treatment modality for individuals suffering from mental health disorders. Patients and their caregivers emphasize antipsychotic prescription and usage, but persistent questions concern their tolerability and safety when used for extended timescales. This paper evaluates the common side effects of antipsychotic medications, strategies to manage them, and the rationale for including side effects in informed consent forms. In addition, the paper appraises the provided mini-cases to determine the side effects and appropriateness of the started and recommended medications.
Part 1: Adverse Effects of Mental Health Medications
Common Side Effects
A troubling and enduring attribute of these medications is their possibility to prompt severe adverse effects to an extent that can jeopardize the fundamental rationale for their initial prescription (Begum et al., 2020). Antipsychotics are linked to a wide range of possible adverse side effects which can include sedation, extrapyramidal side effects (EPSEs), metabolic disturbance, urinary effects, weight gain, sexual dysfunction, gastrointestinal effects, and prolactin elevation manifestations (e.g., galactorrhoea, menstrual irregularities). These side effects potentially undermine an individual's life quality, are linked to stigma and distress, and could result in physical morbidity (including mortality in rare scenarios). Moreover, antipsychotic side effects negatively influence patients' subjective well-being and attitudes, leading to non-compliance to treatment modalities (Hynes et al., 2020). More specifically, there is an alarming antipsychotic non-adherence, with roughly 80 percent of the patients prescribed psychotic medications stopping taking them prematurely (Hynes et al., 2020). Non-adherence to these medications severely impacts patient health outcomes, with an increased probability of relapse leading to extended hospital stays and re-hospitalization. For individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia, non-compliance increases the risk of relapse five-fold. At the same time, those who have bipolar disorder recorded a five-fold suicide rate due to failure to take medicines as prescribed (Hynes et al., 2020). This shows that antipsychotic non-adherence is a significant issue that precipitates adverse side effects in individuals with mental health disorders.
The side effects of antipsychotic medicines span from mild to severe levels. Whereas some adverse effects have potentially insignificant short-term risks of clinical symptoms (e.g., increased levels of serum lipids or prolactin), others may entail long-term clinical complications (Stroup & Gray, 2018). For example, patients prescribed antipsychotics are three-fold more likely to me...