Furthermore, apart from the fact that they had relapsed

no care co-ordinator had identified any other compelling evidence (such as a history of noncompliance or large quantities of medications found at their home) to indicate that they were noncompliant (which would have excluded them from the study). Where there were any doubts concerning an individual’s compliance, they were excluded from the study. As dopamine supersensitivity-induced breakthrough psychosis Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical occurs in compliant patients, CPNs and other care co-ordinators need to guard against compliance-related complacency. Furthermore, although CPNs and other community care co-ordinators are best placed to monitor for side effects due to their sustained regular contact with patients, it has been found that CPNs tend to assess for a small number of side effects,

such as akathisia, and often do not assess for tardive dyskinesia and other AIMs [Bennett et al. 1995]. click here However, this has implications for their ability to Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical assess for, and identify supersensitivity psychosis cases at an early stage. This indicates that there is a need for CPNs to be better trained to assess for the presence of the broad range of side effects associated with both typical and atypical antipsychotics. A limitation of the present study is whether the checklist Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical could be used in clinical practice. For a trained LEDS interviewer assessing for the presence of life events was not difficult, the main difference was in remembering the 10 domains and using appropriate probing questions. It could be argued that this would Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical not be the case for most CPNs in practice. However, LEDS is primarily concerned with people in their social context and would complement the assessment skills used Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical by mental health workers,

for example, asking about increases or decreases in contact with family and friends, satisfaction with the home and local area, financial difficulties or windfalls, physical or psychological health concerns to self or close ties, relationship difficulties with partner and experiences of crime, are the type of questions that staff use frequently in routine assessments. Therefore, as with assessing because for side effects, this research identified a need for community staff to be trained in some brief modified form of LEDS to aid clinical assessment. Conclusion This study used a checklist of diagnostic criteria for supersensitivity psychosis and found it present in 39% of relapses. The checklist demonstrated its utility by identifying a probable cause of relapse for 70% of the participants. This study found that supersensitivity psychosis occurred in antipsychotic-compliant patients. Furthermore, there was no evidence of an association with an increased tolerance to antipsychotics indicated by higher doses.