Cited by 259Schizophrenia research and treatmentMental Health and PsychiatryTreatment of Major Depression

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 74 of the 74 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

The acute efficacy of antipsychotics in schizophrenia: a review of recent meta-analyses

Open access
Haddad, Peter M., Correll, Christoph U.·2018·Therapeutic Advances in Psychopharmacology

Abstract

Schizophrenia is the eighth leading cause of disability worldwide in people aged 15–44 years. Before antidopaminergic antipsychotics were introduced in the 1950s, no effective medications existed for the treatment of schizophrenia. This review summarizes key meta-analytic findings regarding antipsychotic efficacy in the acute treatment of schizophrenia, including clozapine in treatment-resistant patients. In the most comprehensive meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials conducted in multi-episode schizophrenia, antipsychotics outperformed placebo regarding total symptoms, positive symptoms, negative symptoms, depressive symptoms, quality of life and social functioning. Amongst these outcomes, the standardized mean difference for overall symptoms was largest, that is, 0.47 (95% credible interval = 0.42–0.51), approaching a medium effect size, being reduced to 0.38 when publication bias and small-trial effects were accounted for. A comparison of two meta-analyses indicated that first-episode patients, compared with multi-episode patients, were more likely to have at least minimal treatment response [⩾20% Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS)/Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS) score reduction: 81% versus 51%] and good response (⩾50% PANSS/BPRS score reduction: 52% versus 23%). In multi-episode schizophrenia, no response or worsening after 2 weeks of a therapeutic antipsychotic dose was highly predictive of not achieving a good response at endpoint (median treatment = 6 weeks: specificity = 86%; positive predictive value = 90%), suggesting a change in treatment should be considered in such cases. In first-episode psychosis, adequately dosed antipsychotic treatment trials for more than 2 weeks are recommended before using no response or worsening as a decision point for aborting a given antipsychotic. In clearly defined treatment-resistant schizophrenia, clozapine generally outperformed other antipsychotics, especially when dosed appropriately (target = 3–6 months’ duration; trough clozapine level ⩾350–400 μg/L) with a response rate (⩾20% PANSS/BPRS) of 33% by 3 months of treatment. High antipsychotic doses and psychotropic combinations are unlikely to be superior to standard doses of antipsychotic monotherapy. Acute antipsychotic efficacy in schizophrenia depends on the targeted symptom domain (greater efficacy: total and positive symptoms, lesser efficacy: negative symptoms, depressive symptoms, social functioning and quality of life). Greater antipsychotic efficacy is associated with higher total baseline symptom severity, treatment-naïveté/first-episode status, shorter illness duration, and trials that are nonindustry sponsored and that have a lower placebo effect. The heterogeneity of antipsychotic response across individuals and key symptom domains, the considerable degree of nonresponse/treatment resistance in multi-episode patients, and the adverse effect potential of antipsychotics are major limitations, underscoring the need to develop new medications for the treatment of schizophrenia. Drug development should include matching patient subgroups, which are identified by means of clinical and biomarker variables, to mechanisms of action of novel medications, targeting specific symptom domains, and investigating mechanisms of action other than dopaminergic blockade.

Overview

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1177/2045125318781475

Cites

74 of 74 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Verification

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Citations

Cites

Research works printed but not linked: 12

  1. World Health Organisation, 2001, The WHO World Health Report 2001 - Mental Health: New Understanding, New Hope
  2. A full list of the papers available in the Special Collection on Antipsychotics: Advances, Limitations, and Alternatives in Therapeutic Advances in Psychopharmacology is available at: http://journals.sagepub.com/page/tpp/special-collection/antipsychotics
  3. 10.1176/ajp.2006.163.4.743 · DOI
  4. Royal College of Psychiatrists, 2014, CR190 Consensus statement on High-dose Antipsychotic medication
  5. Ackenheil M, 1977, Psychotherapeutic drugs: part II, 923
  6. Idanpaan-Heikkila J, Lancet, 1975
  7. National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), 2014, Clinical guideline [CG178]
  8. 10.1176/ajp.151.12.1744 · DOI
  9. Albert C., 2017, Int J Mol Sci, 18
  10. Zhao S, 2015, Cochrane Database Syst Rev
  11. Dieterich M, 2017, Cochrane Database Syst Rev
  12. Carmona VR, 2017, Int J Occup Med Environ Health, 30, 345

Cited by

Sorted by citations

See all 259

Metadata

Authors
Haddad, P. M., & Correll, C. U.
Affiliations
  • University of Manchester (GB)
  • Hofstra University (US)
Corresponding author
Haddad, Peter M.
Venue
Therapeutic Advances in Psychopharmacology
Published
2018-10-08
Volume
8
Issue
11
Pages
303-318
ISSN
  • 2045-1253 (ISSN-L)
  • 2045-1261
OpenAlex
W2897156727
Cited by
259
References
74
Citations by year
2026: 31 · 2025: 36 · 2024: 45 · 2023: 46 · 2022: 31 · 2021: 33 · 2020: 23 · 2019: 12
FWCI
2.58
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Therapeutic Advances in Psychopharmacology (publishedVersion)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Schizophrenia research and treatment
  • Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Mental Health and Psychiatry
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Pharmacology (medical) › Treatment of Major Depression
Keywords
schizophrenia, antipsychotic drugs, clozapine, treatment-resistant schizophrenia, first-episode psychosis, treatment response prediction, antipsychotic dosing, antipsychotic monotherapy, positive symptoms, negative symptoms, depressive symptoms, quality of life, social functioning, publication bias

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review