Two-Year Naturalistic Outcome Study of Schizophrenics after Discharged from a University Hospital on a Regimen of Risperidone or Typical Antipsychotics / 신경정신의학

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVES: To explore the naturalistic outcome of the schizophrenics, we evaluated key clinical outcome-drop-out rate and readmission rate among the 33 risperidone and 17 conventional antipsychotics(such as haloperidol, chlorpromazine, mesoridazine) treated patients who met DSM-IV diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia at psychiatric department of a university hospital. METHOD: Outcome data was extracted from the charts of 50-schizophrenic patients who were more than 2 years after initiation of treatment with risperidone and conventional anti-psychotics. RESULTS: During over the 2-year period, the drop-out rate of the conventional antipsychotics treated schizophrenics was significantly higher than that of risperidone treated patients. But no significant factors(such as age, education level, duration of illness) were found between these two differently treated groups. Among the risperidone treated patients, the percentage of readmission was 18.2% at 12 months and 45.5% at 24 months. CONCLUSIONS: Reduced drop-out and rehospitalization rate suggest that risperidone was better than conventional antipsychotics among schizophrenic patients in a university hospital. Our data may contribute essential functional outcome information to assist the clinician in long-term, comparative treatment evaluation in 'real' clinical practice.