Women with Schizophrenia Have Difficulty Maintaining Healthy Diets for Themselves and Their Children: A Narrative Review

Abstract

Severe psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia are inevitably linked to unemployment, meagre per capita income, and residence in disadvantaged, poorly resourced neighbourhoods. This means difficult access to healthy food and is particularly problematic for pregnant women and mothers with children to feed. The necessity of taking antipsychotic drugs is an additional barrier to healthy eating because these drugs are associated with serious cognitive, psychological, behavioural, and metabolic sequelae. Being ill with psychosis makes it extremely difficult to maintain a healthy diet; nutritional deficiencies result, as do medical complications. The results of present literature review confirm the gravity of the problem and suggest a number of potentially useful clinical interventions.

Development and Validation of a Food Frequency Questionnaire for Evaluating the Nutritional Status of Patients with Serious Mental Illnesses (DIETQ-SMI) in Bahrain

“…One question not examined here was the nutritional status of women with an SMI who are also parents. Such women often sacrifice their own nutrition to provide for their children, a behavior which can severely undermine their own health [51]. Long-term studies should examine the sensitivity of the FFQ to change to accurately assess nutritional interventions over time.…”