South Asian Research Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences (SARJPS)
Volume-2 | Issue-06
Original Research Article
Affordability of Antipsychotic Medications of Respondents who are being managed for Schizophrenia in Benin City, Nigeria
Joshua W Edefo, Stella F Usifoh, Anthony W Udezi, Jacob Egharevba
Published : Nov. 9, 2020
Abstract
Introduction: The consequences of expensive antipsychotics medication can be two-folds. One, patients can become more impoverished due to the spending of limited financial resources on the procurement of antipsychotics. Second, the high cost of antipsychotics may be discouraging and therefore lead to poor adherence and therapeutic failure. The objective was to determine the levels of impoverishment, catastrophic expenditure and the number of days the least paid government worker will have to work due to out-of-pocket (OOP) payments of antipsychotics in a sample of patients receiving treatment for schizophrenia in Benin City. Method: A community-based cross-sectional survey among respondents who are being managed for schizophrenia was conducted using two-stage cluster sampling procedure. Outcome measures were poverty headcount ratio, poverty gap index, catastrophic expenditure and the number of days the least paid government worker will have to work to procure antipsychotics. Results: Patients with schizophrenia receiving olanzapine, risperidone, haloperidol, trifluoperazine or chlorpromazine medication are being further impoverished by 11.1%, 7.4%, 3.7%, 3.7% and 1.9% respectively, at the risk of catastrophic expenses by 70%, 64%, 28%, 28%, 34% respectively while that of number of days the least paid government worker will have to work to get their drugs were 1.8 day, 1.35 day, 0.15 day, 0.15 day, 0.21 day respectively. Conclusion: Antipsychotics such as olanzapine and risperidone are far less affordable than chlorpromazine, haloperidol and trifluoperazine.