The False Drug Side-Effect: Which Patients Complain

At the Massachusetts Mental Health Center (M.M.H.C.), a well-staffed university psychiatric hospital, an outbreak of alleged chlorpromazine-induced skin rashes recently occurred involving five dramatic young female patients. Investigation of the complaints led us to doubt whether medication was the cause. Why then did these women blame chlorpromazine? Thus, the central concern of this investigation: which patients are likely to complain of drug-induced side-effects and under what conditions? A second issue arising from our study and described in the literature is the need for care when differentiating the true from the alleged medication side-effect.