WORKING WITH YOUR HEALTHCARE TEAM

You, and those who care for you, can help with your treatment and how you monitor your reactions and side effects. Your healthcare team needs to collect a lot of information to develop a treatment plan that best addresses your needs. For example: do you want to have a child now or in the future? Are you working? Do you have any allergies? Do you have a support network?

Working with Your Doctor

You and your doctor will work together as a team to manage your treatment plan, so it is safer and more reassuring to have an open and honest relationship. Your doctor will want to know what works for you and what does not, to tailor each plan to fit you best.

Your doctor will ask a number of questions and you, too, may have a lot of questions. Here are a few that will give you an outline of what you might want to know to understand your treatment plan and manage your symptoms.

You will probably not want to ask them all — and probably not all at the same time. However, many of these questions will act as a useful reminder of information you might want to know at some point during your treatment. You may want to print this list of questions and take it with you to your next appointment. Consider taking a pen to your appointment to write notes — it might be a lot of information to remember all at once. Your pharmacist is another excellent source of information and will be able to answer many questions related to your medication.

Questions for Your Pharmacist resource

In addition, Health Quality Ontario, the province’s advisor on health care quality, has developed Schizophrenia Quality Standards which provide comprehensive standards of care for the treatment of schizophrenia in the hospital and community settings. The Standards are guides to help you understand the care you should expect and to develop your care plan with your health service providers. You can access these guides on Health Quality Ontario’s website.

Working with Your Pharmacist

Your pharmacist is an important part of your healthcare team. Pharmacists are highly trained in the area of medication management. Pharmacists can work with you to help monitor your medications. Pharmacists can also play a big role in helping you manage or reduce side effects if they occur.

Your pharmacist will always dispense the lowest-priced medication to you. This is a requirement for pharmacists according to the law of dispensing medications. The lowest-priced medication is usually a generic brand of the medication. If you would like the brand name you may request it. However, your medication plan may not cover the whole cost and if you would like this option you will be asked to pay the difference in cost.

Your pharmacist may ask you a number of questions to help determine if your medication is working, the risk for side effects, and medication interactions. As noted earlier, psychotropic medications are used to treat many different disorders and can be used “off-label”. Therefore, it is important that you inform your pharmacist what your medication is being prescribed to treat. This will help the pharmacist ensure the dose is correct, as well as assist the pharmacist in assessing if the medication is working well for you.

You, too, may have many questions about your medication for the pharmacist. Ask them as many questions as you can to be sure you understand your medications. Most pharmacies have a private counselling room to discuss your medication. Ask your pharmacist if you can review your questions in a private space.