Affordability of antipsychotic medications of respondents who are being managed for schizophrenia in Benin City

Introduction: The consequences of expensive antipsychotics medication can be two folds. One, patients can become more impoverished due to the spending of limited financial resources on the procurement of antipsychotics. Second, the high cost of antipsychotics maybe discouraging and therefore lead to poor adherence and therapeutic failure. The objective was to determine the levels of impoverishment, catastrophic expenditure and the number of days the least paid government worker will have to work due to out-of-pocket (OOP) payments of antipsychotics in a sample of patients receiving treatment for schizophrenia in Benin City. Methods: A community-based cross-sectional survey amongst respondents who are being managed for schizophrenia was conducted using a two-stage cluster sampling procedure. Outcome measures were poverty headcount ratio, poverty gap, catastrophic expenditure and the number of days the least paid government worker will have to work due to OOP payments for antipsychotics. Results: Schizophrenics receiving olanzapine, risperidone, haloperidol, trifluoperazine or chlorpromazine medication to manage their psychiatric condition are being further impoverished by 11.1%, 7.4%, 3.7%, 3.7% and 1.9%, respectively, at the risk of catastrophic expenses by 70%, 64%, 28%, 28% and 34%, respectively, while that of number of days the least paid government worker will have to work to get their drugs were 1.8 day, 1.35 day, 0.15 day, 0.15 day, 0.21 day, respectively. Conclusion: Antipsychotics such as olanzapine and risperidone are far less affordable than chlorpromazine, haloperidol and trifluoperazine.