The Impact of an Intensive Educational Program on Knowledge, Attitudes, and Side Effects of Psychotropic Medications Among Adolescent Inpatients

Abstract

The use Of a manual about psychotropic medications that was specifically written for adolescents, along with opportunities to discuss its contents, was offered as an addition to the routine verbal educational approach to educate hospitalized adolescents about their psychopharmacological treatments. The effects of this more intensive patient education intervention were evaluated to determine the impact of providing written information about psychiatric medications to adolescent inpatients. In both the routine and intensive educational approaches, most adolescents learned the name, dose, target symptoms, and benign side effects of their medication, but not the more serious side effects or alternatives to the treatment. Patients who received the intensive verbal and written education had significantly better knowledge of specific target symptoms and benign side effects of the medication treatment, but they continued to recall poorly both serious side effects and treatment alternatives. The increased knowledge in the intensive education group did not lead to an increase in side effect reports. Attitudes that may pertain to medication compliance were also better in patients who received both verbal and written education. It appeared that routine verbal education does not necessarily provide adolescents with sufficient information to improve their attitudes toward medication, but it may be sufficient to get them to agree to treatment. This study supports the notion that written materials for adolescents, accompanied by verbal instructions should be considered for routine clinical treatment of adolescent psychiatric inpatients.