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Psychiatry and Mental Health/Antipsychotic Treatment in Major Mental Illness

Pre-Activity Questionnaire

 

1. Atypical, or second-generation, antipsychotics as a group are:

Consistent in mechanism of action

Highly variable in their side-effect profiles

Uniformly more effective than first-generation antipsychotics in treating positive and negative symptoms

Significantly less likely to produce extrapyramidal side effects than are all first-generation antipsychotics.

 

2. "Atypical" antipsychotics are described as such because:

They are more effective in patients whose symptom clusters are uncommon

They have no effect on dopamine transmitters and are therefore distinct from earlier antipsychotic agents

They treat only negative symptoms

They are associated with a lower rate of extrapyramidal side effects than are earlier agents and therefore are distinct from earlier antipsychotic agents.