I realized that consuming illegal drugs facilitates psychotic symptoms among schizophrenic patients. In the video, smoking marijuana and consuming stimulants such as amphetamine and cocaine induces psychotic symptoms (Living with Schizophrenia, 2013). Schizophrenia is a psychological disorder affecting about 1% of the people in the world. Individuals suffering from schizophrenia have a high likelihood of having substance use disorders. Tobacco, alcohol, cannabis, and cocaine are among the hard drugs mostly used by schizophrenic people. According to Khokhar et al. (2018), the lifetime prevalence rates of cigarette is 90%, 21-86% for alcohol, 17-83% for cannabis, and 15-50 for cocaine. Substance use disorders are associated with exacerbation of symptoms, non-compliance with medication, poor physical and psychological functioning, violence, suicide, relapse, and re- hospitalizations.
The comorbidity of schizophrenia and substance abuse has elicited increasing debate. Specifically, substance abuse is associated with high rates of psychosis in schizophrenic patients. Heavy use of cannabis is associated with relapse of psychotic symptoms in these patients (Winklbaur et al., 2006) . Substance use among schizophrenics is related to poor outcomes such as psychotic symptoms and poor adherence to treatment. Since schizophrenia and substance use disorders are interdependent, it is necessary to incorporate psychosocial and pharmacological interventions during treatment to achieve the desired outcomes.
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I learned the necessity of involving families while treating schizophrenic patients. The deinstitutionalization of mental healthcare has led to an emphasis on the importance of including family members in treatment. Schizophrenia is associated with increased impairment in social, financial, and occupational functioning. Further, the anxiety caused by the diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment trigger high anxiety and stress levels among family members ( Caqueo-Urízar et al., 2015). Besides, family members are forced to adjust quickly to the role of “informal carers," which they are unprepared for. It is necessary to provide routine psycho-education to family members to reduce the recurrence of symptoms and promote adherence to medications. Additionally, psycho-education can increase knowledge on how to handle schizophrenic family members and also enhance their coping mechanisms.
References
Caqueo-Urízar, A., Rus-Calafell, M., Urzúa, A., Escudero, J., & Gutiérrez-Maldonado, J. (2015). The role of family therapy in the management of schizophrenia: challenges and solutions. Neuropsychiatric disease and treatment , 11 , 145–151. https://doi.org/10.2147/NDT.S51331
Khokhar, J. Y., Dwiel, L. L., Henricks, A. M., Doucette, W. T., & Green, A. I. (2018). The link between schizophrenia and substance use disorder: A unifying hypothesis. Schizophrenia Research , 194 , 78–85. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.schres.2017.04.016
Living with Schizophrenia. Written by Andrew Campbell; Directed by Christine Mason; Presented by Andrew Campbell; Produced by Christine Mason (New York, NY; Guilford Publications, 2003).
Winklbaur, B., Ebner, N., Sachs, G., Thau, K., & Fischer, G. (2006). Substance abuse in patients with schizophrenia. Dialogues in clinical neuroscience , 8 (1), 37–43. https://doi.org/10.31887/DCNS.2006.8.1/bwinklbaur
