Prevention of relapse in schizophrenia.

Abstract

Schizophrenia is a devastating mental disorder and a leading cause of disability.1 It affects between 0.4 and 1.4 percent of people during their lives,2 usually beginning in adolescence or early adulthood; less than 20 percent of patients maintain full recovery after the first episode.2 Drug treatment and psychosocial interventions such as family and cognitive therapy3 are the main approaches to preventing relapses. Conventional antipsychotic drugs such as chlorpromazine and haloperidol were introduced in the 1950s and are effective in treating acute psychotic symptoms and in preventing relapse.3,4 The prevention of relapse, however, requires prolonged or even lifelong therapy, which . . .