Ramprasad Santhanakrishna Kirgaval, Srinivas Revanakar and Chidanand Srirangapattna
Background: Antipsychotic drugs are associated with adverse effects that can lead to poor medication adherence, stigma, distress and impaired quality of life. Among the various side effects of anti-psychotics extra pyramidal symptoms constitute one of the important side effects interfering with the compliance of the patients towards medication. Objective: Evaluation of extrapyramidal side effects by AIMS in patients who are on antipsychotics. Results: The extrapyramidal symptoms were more commonly seen in males (62.85%), the age of incidence of maximum in the age group of 34.28, Maximum was seen among the patients on the Risperidone (45.7%), Involvement of the extremities was common (42.85%) and 64.28% of individuals had moderate severity and 54.28% of individuals were aware of the extrapyramidal symptoms which provided mild distress. Conclusion: Extrapyramidal symptoms are one of the commonest side effect of the antipsychotics interfering with compliance of the patients towards adherence to medications, thereby decreasing the efficacy