Quality of life and subjective well-being during treatment with antipsychotics in out-patients with schizophrenia

To assess the Quality of Life (QOL) in outpatients with schizophrenia under antipsychotics from two perspectives: a “subjective” perspective as rated by the patient and an “objective” perspective as rated by the physician. EASE (External Assessment of Quality of Life in Out-patients with Schizophren...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Progress in neuro-psychopharmacology & biological psychiatry 2007-04, Vol.31 (3), p.703-712
Main Authors: Wehmeier, Peter M., Kluge, Michael, Schneider, Edith, Schacht, Alexander, Wagner, Thomas, Schreiber, Wolfgang
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Adult and adolescent clinical studies
Aged
Antipsychotic Agents - therapeutic use
Antipsychotics
Attitude to Health
Biological and medical sciences
Cohort Studies
Female
Humans
Male
Medical sciences
Middle Aged
Neuropharmacology
Outpatients
Personal Satisfaction
Pharmacology. Drug treatments
Proportional Hazards Models
Psychiatric Status Rating Scales
Psycholeptics: tranquillizer, neuroleptic
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychopathology. Psychiatry
Psychopharmacology
Psychoses
Quality of Life
Regression Analysis
Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia - drug therapy
Schizophrenia - physiopathology
Schizophrenic Psychology
Severity of Illness Index
Subjective well-being
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Summary:To assess the Quality of Life (QOL) in outpatients with schizophrenia under antipsychotics from two perspectives: a “subjective” perspective as rated by the patient and an “objective” perspective as rated by the physician. EASE (External Assessment of Quality of Life in Out-patients with Schizophrenia) is a 12-month, prospective, naturalistic study of the QOL in patients on antipsychotic treatment for schizophrenia in an out-patient setting in Germany. The study included 1462 patients who were initiated on a new antipsychotic or switched to another antipsychotic. The Subjective Well-being under Neuroleptics scale (SWN) and the Quality of Life Scale (QLS) were used to assess the QOL in these patients. The Clinical Global Impression (CGI) scale was used to assess overall symptom severity. Four cohorts were identified and evaluated: (a) patients treated with olanzapine monotherapy ( N = 1007), (b) another atypical antipsychotic as monotherapy ( N = 335), (c) a typical antipsychotic as monotherapy ( N = 32) and (d) combination therapy with more than one antipsychotic ( N = 88). QOL as assessed by both SWN and QLS improved in all treatment cohorts. SWN responses in the respective cohorts were (a) 52.3%, (b) 38.8%, (c) 31.3% and (d) 44.3%, whilst the QLS responses were (a) 58.2%, (b) 45.1%, (c) 59.4% and (c) 40.9%. Symptom severity as assessed by the CGI also improved over time regardless of the type of antipsychotic. An increase of one point on the CGI corresponded to a change in SWN total score of − 9.67 points and a change in QLS total score of − 13.36 points. Both QOL and symptom severity improved over the 12-month study period, regardless of the type of antipsychotic taken. QOL improvement as perceived both from a “subjective” and an “objective” perspective was greatest in the cohort on olanzapine monotherapy.
ISSN:0278-5846
1878-4216
DOI:10.1016/j.pnpbp.2007.01.004