Experiences of family carers for persons using antipsychotic medication

Given the emphasis on the use of antipsychotic medication for severe mental illness, it is important to understand family carers’ perspectives on these medications and their effects on consumers’ lives. Such information may enable providers of family interventions to better understand families’ circumstances and more effectively support them in caring for mental health service users. Snowball sampling was used to recruit 29 family carers. Family carers acknowledged the calming effect of antipsychotic medication on service users, but also noted that there were few other therapeutic benefits. Moreover, the positive influence of antipsychotic medication was in most cases largely offset by the detrimental impact of antipsychotic medication on service users’ quality of life. The family carers in rationalising the trade-off between beneficial and adverse antipsychotic medication effects typically experienced resignation, which was often accompanied by a sense of frustration that resulted from the reliance on medication