Psylog, an EPA smartphone application to prevent antipsychotic side-effects

Abstract

Antipsychotic medications are used to treat a significant number of psychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, which have a significant impact on overall disability in Europe. Although these drugs have documented efficacy, they are also associated with side-effects such as drowsiness, weight gain, type 2 diabetes, or extrapyramidal symptoms [1]. These contribute to increasing overall morbidity and mortality [2], reduced quality of life, and can push patients to stop their medications. This often leads to relapse, and the need for a new hospital admission, which is detrimental to the patient, and create extra costs for the society. However, the monitoring of side-effects is rarely carried out in a standardized way in daily clinical practice. Smartphones are an acceptable and easy to use tool available to patients with schizophrenia [3]. The aim of the mPIVAS (mHealth psychoeducational intervention versus antipsychotic-induced side effects) project is to develop an effective and innovative smartphone application that can be used by psychiatrists and patients in order to monitor medications’ side-effects. The European Psychiatric Association (EPA) is involved in this project with the objective to develop this application in 6 languages. Part of the project includes training European early careers psychiatrists to the use Psylog and helping them to spread information about this new project in their own country, by organising local and national cascade courses. We expect an improvement in psychiatric care in all involved institutions through the education of employees, a better implication of patients in their disease, and an improved monitoring of antipsychotic side-effects.

Disclosure of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest concerning this article.