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Awareness of TD Symptoms Linked With Poorer Health, Social Functioning in Patients
Clinician-confirmed possible tardive dyskinesia (TD) was associated with diminished wellness and social functioning in real-world patients, according to a study published online in the Journal of Patient-Reported Outcomes.
“For optimal diagnosis and treatment, it may be important to assess patients’ awareness of their own symptoms and the impact of these symptoms on overall wellness and ability to function — whether self-reported using a formal instrument (EQ-5D-5L, SDS) or simple descriptors (“none,” “some,” or “a lot” of impact),” wrote corresponding author Caroline M. Tanner, MD, PhD, of the University of California - San Francisco Department of Neurology, and coauthors. “Clinician ratings of TD severity were less likely to be associated with EQ-5D-5L and SDS scores, underscoring the importance of assessing the patient’s perspective.”
Related: How does tardive dyskinesia impact medication adherence?
The analysis included real-world outpatients from the RE-KINECT study, which included US adults with 3 or more months of lifetime exposure to antipsychotic medication and at least 1 clinician-confirmed psychiatric disorder. Researchers compared 450 participants with no abnormal involuntary movements with 204 participants with possible TD, per clinician judgement, to investigate how possible TD affected physical wellness (as gauged by the EQ-5D-5L utility score) and social functioning (the SDS total score).
Average EQ-5D-5L scores were lower and SDS scores were higher — indicating relatively worse overall health and social functional status — in patients with possible TD compared with patients without TD after adjustment for age, health status, and other factors, according to the study. However, the differences were not statistically significant.
When researchers focused solely on patients with possible TD, and separated those who were and were not aware of their possible TD, they found statistically significantly worse social functioning among the 110 patients who were aware compared with the 94 patients who were not. Regression analyses showed that patient-reported impact of TD symptoms had the largest effects on physical wellness and social functioning scores, followed by patient-reported severity of TD symptoms, the authors reported.
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