Subjective well-being under clozapine measured with the Serbian version of GASS-C: Preliminary results

Abstract

Introduction

Clinical benefits of antipsychotic treatment depend on the efficacy and on the patients’ tolerability and compliance. To reduce patient initiated treatment discontinuation, timely detection of treatment emergent side effects is essential. The Glasgow Antipsychotic Side-effects scale for clozapine (GASS-C) is a recently developed instrument to measure subjectively experienced clozapine side effects.

Objectives

Timely detection of unreported clozapine related side-effects.

Aim

Documenting the prevalence of side-effects in schizophrenia or chronic psychotic disorder with the Serbian version of the GASS-C.

Methods

The sample included 95 in and outpatients with schizophrenia or chronic psychotic disorder. All subjects filled out the Serbian version of the GASS-C and a sociodemographic questionnaire.

Results

The median age was 46.1 years; 53.7% of subjects were male. Clozapine doses ranged from 25 to 423 mg. Drowsiness (78%) was the most commonly reported side-effect. Overall, 16.8% of the patients added other complaints, such as headache, pain, hand or leg numbing or nightmares. According to GASS-C total score categorization [2], only 4.2. % of subjects were rated with severe side-effects, while 14% of themselves rated their symptoms as severe or distressing. More side effects were reported by female patients and by inpatients. Only a weak positive correlation was found between the severity of the side effects and clozapine dosage.

Conclusions

We found the GASS-C to be a useful instrument that elicits both unknown side-effects and patients rating of their severity. Side effects did not clearly relate to the prescribed dose. Future research should include the relation of clozapine plasma levels with side effects assessed with GASS-C.

Disclosure of interest

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.