Attitudes toward taking medication among outpatients with schizophrenia: cross-national comparison between Tokyo and Beijing

Abstract

Objectives The aim of this study was to compare attitudes toward medication and associated factors for patients with schizophrenia in Japan and China. Methods Age-group matched samples were drawn from outpatients in Tokyo (N = 76) and Beijing (N = 76) according to the same inclusion/exclusion criteria. Psychotropic prescription and attitudes toward medication were measured using Drug Attitude Inventory-30 (DAI-30) and an original questionnaire regarding beliefs about psychiatric medication. Stepwise regression analysis of the DAI-30 data was performed for each group. Results Japanese subjects were prescribed significantly larger amounts of antipsychotics. Polypharmacy of antipsychotics and concurrent use of anticholinergics, anxiolytics, or hypnotics were more frequently found among subjects in Tokyo than among those in Beijing. However, subjects in Tokyo and Beijing had similar subjective responses to medication, subjective evaluation of sideeffects, and complaints about overuse of psychotropics. Subjects in Tokyo complained less about physician's overreliance on medication and were less concerned about medication cost than those in Beijing. In Tokyo, longer duration of illness and lower subjective distress caused by side effects predicted a more positive subjective response, while female gender, younger age, and lower Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale score were independently correlated with a better subjective response in Beijing. Conclusions Subjective acceptance of multiple medications is greater for patients in Japan than those in China. Determinants of subjective response to medication varied between Japan and China.

Attitudes Towards Antipsychotics Among Patients with Schizophrenia on First- or Second-Generation Medications

“…This was consistent with the results of several previous studies on this aspect. [21213142333] However, unlike other studies,[231112131422232933] severity of symptoms explained only a negligible proportion of the variance in attitudes in the present study. This could be attributed to the nature of the sample, which largely consisted of chronically ill, but stable patients with moderate levels of psychopathology.…”

“…This could be attributed to the nature of the sample, which largely consisted of chronically ill, but stable patients with moderate levels of psychopathology. Though the association with demographic factors such as younger are, male gender and employment in this study was in line with some of the earlier ones,[2334] on the whole these variables did not appear to make a significant contribution to patients’ attitudes. This too was in keeping with the predominant trend in much of the previous research.…”

The impact of antipsychotic side effects on attitudes towards medication in people with schizophrenia and related disorders

“…There are studies that have found a positive relationship between antipsychotic side effects and attitudes towards medication (Lambert et al. 2004, Kuroda et al. 2008), while some studies related attitudes towards medication to specific antipsychotic side effects, such as sedation (Hofer et al.…”

Social Interaction and Drug Attitude Effectiveness in Patients with Schizophrenia

“…In this study, we found good drug attitude and medication adherence were related closely to good social interaction (the most significant effective item in personal and social In a Tokyo study, longer duration of illness was able to predict a positive subjective response [23]. Other studies have shown that older patients and longer duration of illness led to a higher total score on the DAI; the same conclusion was noted in another crosssectional survey of stabilized outpatients, and increasing insight into the illness over time was the reason [24,25].…”