Just how good are antipsychotics at preventing relapse? Bridging the efficacy-effectiveness gap

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Samei Huda summarises a new network meta-analysis in the Lancet Psychiatry on the efficacy and effectiveness of antipsychotics for schizophrenia in research settings, such as randomised controlled trials, versus real-world and clinical settings.

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Do different groups of people with schizophrenia respond differently to different antipsychotics?

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Murtada Alsaif considers a systematic review and meta-analysis published in the Lancet Psychiatry exploring the response of different subgroups of patients with schizophrenia to different antipsychotic drugs.

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Sexual function matters to people living with serious mental illness

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Rudiger Pittrof and Elana Covshoff from SHRINE (Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights, Inclusion and Empowerment) explore a recent review, which looks at the impact of severe mental disorders and psychotropic medications on sexual health and its implications for clinical management.

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Antipsychotics for acute treatment of first episode schizophrenia

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Elwira Lubos writes her debut blog on a recent systematic review with pairwise and network meta-analyses, looking at antipsychotic drugs for the acute treatment of patients with first episode schizophrenia.

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Antipsychotic efficacy measured by real-world observational study

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Tracey Roberts examines whether a retrospective observational study accurately investigates the effectiveness of second and first generation antipsychotics.

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Schizophrenia, antipsychotics and quality of life: measuring the important things

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Samei Huda mulls over a recent RCT on the effects of older and newer antipsychotics on quality of life in schizophrenia. The study finds a different result to the 10-year old CUTLASS trial; namely that second generation antipsychotics may be superior to first generation antipsychotics in terms of improving quality of life for people with schizophrenia.

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Lithium for bipolar disorder: the best maintenance mood stabiliser protection against self-harm and suicide?

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Michael Ostacher provides a robust appraisal of a recent UK cohort study that suggests bipolar disorder patients taking lithium had reduced self-harm and unintentional injury rates, when compared with patients taking valproate, olanzapine or quetiapine.

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Cochrane find no evidence for as required PRN medication for mental health inpatients

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John Baker summarises an updated Cochrane review on ‘as required’ PRN medication regimens for seriously mentally ill people in hospital, which finds no randomised controlled trials that support this widely used intervention.

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Antipsychotics for treatment-resistant schizophrenia

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Murtada Alsaif summarises a recent network meta-analysis, which looks at the efficacy, acceptability and tolerability of antipsychotics for treatment-resistant schizophrenia.

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Biological pathways, antipsychotics and schizophrenia

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Murtada Alsaif summarises a small cohort study that uses shotgun mass spectrometry proteomic profiling to unravel the molecular pathways involved with antipsychotic response in people with schizophrenia.

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