Systematic review of patient and nurse attitudes to depot antipsychotic medication^†

WALBURN, JESSICA
GRAY, RICHARD
GOURNAY, KEVIN
QURAISHI, SEEMA
DAVID, ANTHONY S.

JESSICA WALBURN, RICHARD GRAY, RMN, KEVIN GOURNAY, PhD. SEEMA QURAISHI, MSc, ANTHONY S. DAVID, FRCPsych, Institute of Psychiatry, London, UK

^†See pp. 290-299, this issue.

Correspondence: Professor Anthony David, Institute of Psychiatry & GKT School of Medicine, Denmark Hill, London SE5 8AF, UK. Tel: 020 7848 0138; Fax: 020 7848 0572; e-mail: [email protected]

(First received 6 September 2000, final revision 5 February 2001, accepted 8 February 2001)

British Journal of Psychiatry 179:p 300-307, October 2001.

Background

Depot antipsychotic medication is used widely in the treatment and prophylaxis of severe mental illness.

Aims

To review the literature on patient and nurse satisfaction with, and attitudes towards, depots.

Method

A systematic search of Medline, Embase, PsycINFO, CINAHL and The Cochrane Library was undertaken, along with citation searches. Studies were selected if satisfaction/attitude data were described in the title or abstract and original data were included. Study quality was rated.

Results

The search produced 1374 articles; 22 articles met the inclusion criteria, 18 of which were cross-sectional surveys. Of the 12 studies with relevant data, 10 conveyed a positive opinion of depot medication. Five out of six studies comparing depot with oral medication showed patient preference for depot.

Conclusions

High-quality data examining patient and nurse attitudes regarding depot antipsychotics are sparse. What data there are show a positive attitude to depots from patients. Future randomised controlled trials should include satisfaction as an outcome.

Declaration of interest

Funded by the NHS Health Technology Assessment programme. A.S.D. is participating in a trial funded by Janssen-Cilag and has acted as an advisor for them. He has received expenses to attend academic conferences from Astra-Zeneca and Lundbeck.