MedWire News: Patients with schizophrenia who regularly take their prescribed antipsychotic drugs are less likely to need hospital treatment for their condition than those who sometimes skip their medications, research shows.

Dr Susan dosReis, from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, USA, and colleagues studied 1727 community-based adults with schizophrenia who were enrolled in the Maryland Medicaid programme - a federal and state funded medical assistance plan.

The team used data from pharmacy and hospital records to assess the patients' antipsychotic medication use and hospital admissions for schizophrenia symptoms between 1993 and 2000.

The researchers found that, worryingly, the average duration of antipsychotic drug use among the patients was 6 months in any single year, and 4.5 years over the whole of the study period.

Analysis revealed that patients who took their antipsychotic drugs irregularly were between 52% and 72% more likely to be admitted to hospital for schizophrenia symptoms than those with a more continuous pattern of antipsychotic drug use.

Furthermore, among patients admitted to hospital, those who took their medications irregularly had an average stay in hospital that was 20% longer than that of patients who took their medications on a more continuous basis.

Dr dosReis and team conclude in the journal Schizophrenia Research that their findings "emphasise the benefit of continuous antipsychotic treatment for individuals with schizophrenia".

But they add that their results regarding the average duration of antipsychotic drug use "may reflect the inadequacy of community-based service systems in effectively promoting and maintaining the continuity of antipsychotic treatment among individuals with schizophrenia".