polypharmacy in schizophrenia
Conditions
Interventions
All patients in the experimental group will be involved for one year in an
individualized intention to treat strategy to rationalize and if possible
reduce their polypharmacy. To this purpose an alg
Sponsors
GGZ Friesland (Leeuwarden)
Eligibility
Age
18 Years to 99 Years
Inclusion criteria
Inclusion criteria: patients between18-65 years of age with a diagnosis of schizophrenia, schizo-affective disorder or psychosis n.o.d. currently taking at least two antipsychotic drugs.
Exclusion criteria
Exclusion criteria: having symptoms or side effects so severe that a medication change is indicated immediately; having an exacerbation of psychiatric symptoms within the past 3 months resulting in significant intervention such as having spent one or more nights in psychiatric hospitalization or having received services from a crisis intervention program or psychiatric emergency department; living in a skilled nursing facility as a result of a physical condition or disability; having pending criminal charges; currently pregnant or breastfeeding; for patients with prescriptions of quetiapine the dosage had to be more than 100 mg/day in order to exclude those for whom this agent was prescribed primarily as a sleep aid.
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame |
|---|---|
| personal and social performance, as measured by the Personal and Social Performance scale (Morosini, Magliano, Brambilla, Uglioni, Pioli, 2000) | — |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame |
|---|---|
| proportion and duration of algorithm based antipsychotic treatment, symptom severity, relapse rates, side effects, disability, violence related incidents, health related costs, consumer-involvement | — |
Countries
Netherlands
Outcome results
None listed