There is an enormous body of research concerned with schizophrenia and the use of antipsychotic drugs. A quick search on PubMed for ‘schizophrenia, antipsychotics and randomised controlled trials’ brings back nearly 2,000 articles! The authors of a new systematic review and meta analysis published today in the Lancet, suggest that one area that has not [read the full story…]
This new systematic review compares how effective first-generation antipsychotics (FGAs) and second-generation antipsychotics (SGAs) are at preventing relapse in patients with schizophrenia. The authors carried out a meta-analysis of 23 randomised controlled trials that lasted for ≥6 months and compared FGAs with SGAs in schizophrenia. The outcomes they studied were: Study defined relapse Relapse at 3, [read the full story…]
Many people with bipolar disorder have a range of therapies available to them nowadays, including mood stabilisers (or anticonvulsants), antipsychotics and various psychosocial interventions (including CBT, psychoeducation and family therapy). A research team from the University of Barcelona have published a meta-analysis that investigates the efficacy of drug maintenance treatments for bipolar disorder. They searched from [read the full story…]
Schizophrenia can be a severe and chronic illness characterised by lack of insight and poor compliance with treatment. Psychoeducational approaches have been developed to increase patients’ knowledge of, and insight into, their illness and its treatment. It is supposed that this increased knowledge and insight will enable people with schizophrenia to cope in a more [read the full story…]
