Comparative Outcomes of Clozapine Therapy in Early versus Late Initiators in Patients with Treatment-Resistant Schizophrenia
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.51253/pafmj.v75i6.12071Keywords:
Clozapine Initiation, Initiators, Schizophrenia, Treatment Resistant Schizophrenia.Abstract
Objective: To compare the outcomes of clozapine treatment in early initiators vs late initiators in patients with treatment-resistant schizophrenia
Study Design: Quasi-experimental study
Place and Duration of Study: Departments of Psychiatry Combined Military Hospital Peshawar and Combined Military Hospital Nowshera, Pakistan, from Jan 2023 to Mar 2024.
Methodology: The study included 103 patients with treatment-resistant schizophrenia, diagnosed by going over the past history and record, naive to clozapine, categorized into early (Group-A) and late (Group-B) initiators based on whether they started treatment within or after four years of diagnosis. Data was collected using a semi-structured questionnaire and Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) scores, with treatment efficacy evaluated via changes in these scores after three months using an independent t-test.
Results: Out of 103 patients 78(75.7%) were male and 25(24.3%) were female. The mean age of the participants was 31.49±9.06 years. Comparison of post-treatment PANSS scores between the two groups indicated a significant difference (p<0.001), suggesting that the timing of clozapine initiation impacts treatment outcomes.
Conclusion: Starting clozapine earlier in the course of illness is associated with improvement in symptoms
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