Re: Antipsychotic medication side effect assessment tools: A systematic review

To the Editor

I congratulate Stomski et al. (2016) on their recently published article in your journal, ‘Antipsychotic medication side effect assessment tools: A systematic review’. The authors stated their aim was to critically appraise the psychometric properties of antipsychotic medication side effect assessment tools. In the review, they concluded that the psychometric properties of all the side effect tools identified were deficient in almost every regard.

I would like to bring to the attention of the readers a similar review published in June 2014 titled ‘A review of self-report medication side effect questionnaires for mental health patients’ (Ashoorian et al., 2014). The Australian authors of this review came to a similar conclusion and subsequently developed, validated and trialled a novel self-report side effect tool, The My Medicines and Me Questionnaire (M3Q), for use in mental health patients. The validation process involved content validity involving numerous stakeholders as well as further construct validity and reliability testing using a statistical approach. Following validation, the tool was tested in a population of 205 mental health patients, thus examining its ‘responsiveness’ (Ashoorian et al., 2015). Clearly, the M3Q fills the gap identified by Stomski et al. for a tool that would fulfil all the criteria for the psychometric testing required in the development of a new questionnaire.

The M3Q side effect questionnaire for psychotropic medications is currently being used locally in Australia and internationally in research and clinical practice.