14 DAY TRIAL // A study covering more than 50 years of data suggests that the current clinical practice of given schizophrenia patients antipsychotic medication is indeed the most beneficial course of action.
People who are treated with these drugs have a lower chance of being hospitalized on account of their condition, suffer fewer paranoid delusions, experience an overall-improved quality of life, and display a 60 percent lower chance of relapse following successful treatment.
The new survey was conducted by a team of Germany experts, and included Dr. Roberto Estrada, who is an attending psychiatrist at the Lenox Hill Hospital, in New York City. 65 clinical trials were analyzed, alongside 116 scientific articles on the issue.
These investigations were published between 1959 and 2011, and covered around 6,500 patients diagnosed with schizophrenia. One of the things scientists paid attention to was the rate of relapse one year after antipsychotic treatment began being applied to patients in the study.
The overall data “is consistent with what we see in clinical practice – that we are very well able to keep our patients functioning better and out of the hospital when they consistently take these medications,” Estrada says, quoted by PsychCentral.
In people who were not given antipsychotics, relapse rates were as high as 64 percent after one year of treatment. In the group that was prescribed these drugs, relapse rates peaked at only 27 percent. Hospital readmission rates were 26 percent for the former group, and 10 percent for the latter.
“The cost and adverse effects associated with antipsychotics remain major impediments to achieving more successful treatment of schizophrenia,” Estrada argues. Official statistics estimate that the global cost of antipsychotics purchased last year globally was $18.5 billion.
“Further work needs to be done to develop more effective treatments for schizophrenia that are better-tolerated and thus likely to improve patients’ adherence to taking these medications,” he adds. Details of the new study were published in the latest issue of the esteemed journal The Lancet.
“Antipsychotic maintenance treatment substantially reduces relapse risk in all patients with schizophrenia for up to two years of follow-up,” concludeds Technical University of Munich psychiatrist Dr. Stefan Leucht.