Abstract
Background
The purpose of this study was to assess the 12-month outcomes associated with naturalistic antipsychotic treatment of patients participating in the Schizophrenia Outpatient Health Outcomes (SOHO) study.
Methods
SOHO is a 3-year, prospective, observational study of the health outcomes associated with antipsychotic treatment in 10 European countries. The study included over 10,000 outpatients who were initiating or changing their antipsychotic medication. Medication use pattern, change in symptom severity, social functioning, and health-related quality of life were assessed, as well as rates of response, remission, treatment discontinuation, adverse events, and hospitalization.
Results
Clinical Global Impression-Severity for Schizophrenia (CGI-SCH) and quality of life scores improved in all treatment cohorts. There were greater improvements in the CGI-SCH overall symptom score and in the CGI-SCH positive, negative, cognitive, and depressive symptom scores in the olanzapine and clozapine cohorts compared with other treatment cohorts. Changes were associated with an improvement in quality of life. Patients treated with olanzapine, quetiapine, and clozapine had better tolerability per extrapyramidal symptoms and sexual-related dysfunction measures compared with patients receiving risperidone, amisulpride, or typicals. Patients treated with olanzapine had greater weight gain than patients in all other treatment cohorts.
Conclusion
Patients initiated on olanzapine and clozapine tend to have better outcomes at 12 months than patients initiated on other antipsychotics in routine outpatient clinical practice. Results should be interpreted conservatively due to the nonrandomized study design.
Acknowledgments
The authors thank Sarah Smith for her assistance in editing the paper.
Disclosure
The SOHO study was funded by Eli Lilly and Company. JMH has received economic compensation for his participation on the SOHO advisory board and has acted as consultant or speaker for Astra-Zeneca, Eli Lilly and Lundbeck. JB conducted the statistical analysis of the SOHO study under a contract of Fundació Sant Joan de Déu with Eli Lilly and Company. DN and HA-S are employees of Eli Lilly and Company.