The Medication Use Issues and Challenges of Mental Illness Exacerbation in Patients with Schizophrenia: A Qualitative Study in Thailand [Response to Letter]

Dear editor

We would like to express our gratitude for your interest in our article and hope that it serves as a catalyst for positive change. We apologize for any deficiencies in the data and the quality of the presented article. We would like to provide clarification and additional information. This article is part of a master’s thesis that involves data reduction for a concise presentation. Therefore, some details may not be explicitly mentioned.

We would like to address the following questions and recommendations we have received:

1. The reason for the extended one-year data collection period was to allow for the selection of key informants while considering ethical considerations. This included waiting for patients to reach a stable condition, assessing their level of awareness, and obtaining consent from their relatives to participate. Data collection also involved multiple interviews to establish trust with each key informant. The research collected data from one key informant at a time and concluded the findings before moving on to the next key informant. This approach allowed for the utilization of previous findings in subsequent data collection. Each key informant’s treatment process takes at least one month so we could collect the depth and volume of the data. All above resulted in a relatively long data collection period.
2. To ensure rigor and trustworthiness, we employed triangulation to validate the data. We compared in-depth interview transcripts with records in medical charts, and medical professionals such as nurses, pharmacists, and psychiatrists assisted in reviewing the data used and presented in the article.
3. We acknowledge that the real social context is broader than what we have presented. Our limitation resulted in a narrower focus in the article. We recognize that a larger number of key informants would provide a more comprehensive reflection of reality. However, the depth and volume of the data obtained from our key informants, it was necessary to conclude data collection and answer our research questions. As presented in the aforementioned format.

Once again, we appreciate your interest and additional recommendations. We hope that these clarifications contribute to a clearer and more beneficial article for future researchers in related fields.