The key role of patient in the antipsychotic therapy: shared decision making, adherence and research

A large number of currently available antipsychotic drugs are included into two main classes: traditional (or first-generation), and atypical (or second-generation) antipsychotics. This wide availability of medicinal products allows, at least in part, to address the need to identify the most appropriate treatment for the individual patient. A precondition for the effectiveness of antipsychotic treatment is the adherence, a multi-determined phenomenon that depends on factors related to the pharmacological properties of each agent and on factors independent from the therapy: among them, therapeutic alliance between patients and medical team, patient's belief in benefits and risks of medicines, and patient's relationship with the family and social environment are the most clearly recognized. The collection of data from patient helps the management of the individual clinical case, but this information could also become a source of data for research. In both cases, data must be collected in a ordered and well-coded way, therefore numerous instruments (like questionnaires and registers) are developing. This approach permits to make a recognition of patient's perception of his health condition, as well as the positive and negative outcomes of his pharmacological treatment. These tools are known in the literature by the name of PROMs (patient-reported outcome measures). From the clinical point of view, the PROMs can reduce the gap between patient and clinician in different therapeutic areas. They also enables the physician to identify the most suitable treatment to the individual patient, to meet his needs and preferences, and to adapt the therapy over time to the changes of his medical condition. About the research, the effects reported by the patient, in terms of both benefits and adverse reactions, represent important information useful to conduct observational studies that better define the benefit-risk profile of drug therapies, especially in psychiatry.