Measuring side effects of psychopharmacologic medication in individuals with mental retardation and developmental disabilities
✍ Scribed by Kalachnik, John E.
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1999
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 173 KB
- Volume
- 5
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 1080-4013
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
To various degrees, psychopharmacologic medications are associated with side effects. Despite improvements in newer psychopharmacologic medication, monitoring for side effects remains important for individuals with mental retardation and developmental disabilities for a number of reasons, of which perhaps the most important is that many of these individuals cannot effectively verbally communicate the presence of side effects. This article reviews four basic areas. The first is classification of adverse drug reactions (ADRs) and basic terminology such as the difference between an ADR, side effect, adverse drug event, and adverse event. Second, the methods to approach ADRs are reviewed from an organizational, research, and applied individual perspective. Third, applied side effects rating scales are reviewed. Fourth, methods to determine the likelihood that a clinical manifestation indeed represents a side effect are reviewed. Although no one method will detect all side effects and although all methods generally detect more adverse events or clinical manifestations than actually turn out to be side effects, the material may allow for more structured monitoring of psychopharmacological medication side effects beyond general impression.
1999 Wiley-Liss, Inc.