Pharmacotherapeutic Strategies to Prevent Relapse in Schizophrenia / 신경정신의학

ABSTRACT

Successful treatment is very high in patients with first episode schizophrenia (FES). On the other hand, the problem is a frequent relapse often caused by non-compliance. The non-compliance rate in patients with FES is 40–60% within 1 year. The causes of non-compliance are diverse, such as poor insight, drug side effects, attitude of caregiver, social stigma, etc. Clinicians should be able to provide appropriate psychosocial intervention and long acting injectable antipsychotics (LAI) to overcome non-compliance. Recently, there is solid and accumulating evidence demonstrating superiority of LAI over oral medication in terms of reducing relapse or rehospitalization. In particular, a substantial portion (approximately 30–50%) of patients and caregivers prefer LAI to oral medication. Shared decision-making is the process that clinicians and patients/caregiver should go through in order to obtain the full benefits from LAI.