Costs and affordability of psychotropic medicines for patients with schizophrenia in Nigeria
1 Department of Clinical Pharmacy and Biopharmaceutics, Enugu State University of Science and Technology, Agbani, Enugu, Nigeria.
2 Department of Clinical Pharmacy and Pharmacy Management, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Nigeria.
3 Department of Pharmacology, College of Medicine, Enugu State University of Science and Technology, Enugu, Nigeria.
Research Article
GSC Biological and Pharmaceutical Sciences, 2024, 28(01), 206–214.
Article DOI: 10.30574/gscbps.2024.28.1.0231
Publication history:
Received on 04 May 2024; revised on 18 July 2024; accepted on 21 July 2024
Abstract:
Background: Schizophrenia is a complex illness, in other words, requires certain costs to tackle the challenge. However, the use of psychotropic medicines is paramount for the disease management and the costs of these medications should be considered in the management especially in low- and – middle income countries. There is over-reliance on out-of-pocket payments among the individuals in these countries whereby a large number of the patients purchase the medicines out of pocket, and majority unable to afford the medicines for their illness.
Aim: The aim of this study was to assess the costs and affordability of psychotropic medicines for management of Schizophrenia. It specifically evaluated the financial burden of out-of-pocket payment to purchase medicines for patients with Schizophrenia in Nigeria.
Method: The study was conducted in a Neuropsychiatric Hospital in Southeastern part of Nigeria using a retrospective, cross-sectional study of the costs of psychotropic medicines for adult patients with Schizophrenia that visited the hospital.
Results: All the prescribed oral typical antipsychotics (except chlorpromazine 200mg/day and 300mg/day) gave the patients less than one day wage to pay for medicines, whereas, all the oral atypical antipsychotics gave the patients more than one day wage to pay for the psychotropic medicines.
Conclusion: The atypical antipsychotics were unaffordable to the patients. We considered various factors as limitation and recommend interventions for reimbursements or make the psychotropic medicines free for the patients.
Keywords:
Schizophrenia; Costs; Psychotropic medicines; Affordability; Nigeria
Full text article in PDF:
Copyright information:
Copyright © 2024 Author(s) retain the copyright of this article. This article is published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Liscense 4.0
