Effects of psychotropic drugs and psychiatric illness on vocational aptitude and interest assessment

✍ Scribed by Edward Helmes; Dr. G. Cynthia Fekken

• Book ID: 102676450
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1986
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 565 KB
• Volume: 42
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0021-9762
• DOI: 10.1002/1097-4679(198607)42:4<569::aid-jclp2270420405>3.0.co;2-h

✦ Synopsis

This study examined the vocational aptitude and interest scores of 326 inpatients at a large urban psychiatric hospital. The inpatient group performed significantly below the adult normative mean on eight of nine General Aptitude Test Battery (GATB) aptitude measures; the single exception was Verbal Aptitude. Further, GATB aptitude scores (adjusted for age and education) were significantly lower for patients who were receiving (N = 210) psychotropic medication than for patients who were not receiving (N = 114) psychotropic medication, again with the exception of Verbal Aptitude. Differentiation of patients into subsamples who were receiving particular drugs or drug combinations indicated that phenothiazines in combination with Anti-Parkinsonians were associated with the poorest GATB performances. Interestingly, self-reported vocational interests were not related in any systematic fashion to receiving medication. A variety of explanations that may account for these findings, including drug side-effects and severity or type of psychiatric disorder, were investigated. Implications for vocational counselors were discussed.