Table 5 Impacts of antipsychotic medications among participants with schizophrenia^a

Medication effectiveness

Side effects

“I feel more focus and more level … and you also communicate better. I don’t get agitated.”

“I didn’t say anything until I ended up with diabetes. Because I was wondering why my hands were always so numb and my toes. So then I went for a physical and they was like, ‘Oh you have diabetes.’”

“I’m able to talk to people without feeling like something’s going to happen. Basically having a phone conversation, I’m able to do that, because I’d let the phone ring and let it go to voicemail and be done with it. But I’m able to talk on the phone, interact more.”

“It had me walking [in] slow motion, like I felt like I was a zombie or something.”

“Except for an occasional hallucination in a very high stress situation, I’m clear of symptoms as far as I can tell.”

“Because when you take it, it makes you eat. And then I guess it makes you feel like that’s a comfort. I guess because your mind isn’t racing and then constantly you need to do something and food is something you can do. I was cooking all kinds of things and eating whole course meals. I would eat everything.”

“With every medicine I’ve been on, like, they’re affecting me sexually, too. I hate that side effect.”

“You have a big appetite. A way big appetite.”

Satisfaction with medication

Discontinuing or switching treatments

“The medication I’m on now is right for me. So I feel like I’m going more and more into my recovery.”

“I think that I’m feeling better, that I don’t need it.”

“I used to go off [with anger] for no reason, but since I’ve been taking my medicine, I love being around people.”

“I take it now because, each time [I stopped], I’d end up in the hospital not too long after. And I don’t want to go there. I don’t feel like going back to the psychiatric ward.”