Schizophrenia symptoms and functioning in patients receiving long-term treatment with olanzapine long-acting injection formulation: a pooled analysis

Patients were grouped into 5 categories at baseline, 6？months, and 12？months. Shifts between categories were assessed for individual patients and factors associated with improvement were analyzed. 1182 patients from 3 clinical trials were included in the current analysis.At baseline, 434 (36.8%) patients had minimal Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) symptoms but seriously impaired Heinrich Carpenter’s Quality of Life Scale (QLS) functioning; 303 (25.6%) had moderate to severe symptoms and seriously impaired function; 208 (17.6%) had mild to moderate symptoms but good functioning, and 162 (13.7%) had minimal symptoms and good functioning. Baseline category was significantly associated with Clinical Global Impression – Severity (CGI-S), extrapyramidal symptoms, working status, age, and number of previous episodes. The majority of all patients starting OLAI treatment maintained or improved (62% at 6？months and 52% at 12？months) their symptom and functioning levels on OLAI maintenance treatment. Less than 8% of the patients showed worsening of symptoms or functioning. An improvement in category was associated with high PANSS positive and low CGI-S scores at baseline.We present evidence that a composite assessment of schizophrenic patients including symptom severity and functioning is helpful in the evaluation of maintenance treatment outcomes. This approach could also be useful for the assessment of treatment options in clinical practice.The trials from which data are reported here were registered on clinicaltrials.gov as NCT00088491, NCT00088465, and NCT00320489.Treatment of schizophrenia is a long-term effort, not only aiming to control symptoms but also to maintain or improve functioning, allowing patients to participate in paid employment and other societal activities. Since poor treatment adherence is a major risk for relapse, the use of long-acting injection (“depot”) formulations of antipsychotics should have advantages in maintenance treatment of pati