Abstract
Despite several studies suggesting the effectiveness of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) in schizophrenia, there is still a lack of systematic summary and analysis on the role of TCM as adjuvant therapy in chronic schizophrenia. For this purpose, we conducted a meta-analysis to study the efficacy of TCM as an adjuvant combined with antipsychotics in the treatment of chronic schizophrenia. Until April 2020, based on the review of six electronic databases, eight articles were selected. The articles compared TCM decoction assisted antipsychotic therapies with an antipsychotic alone in the treatment of chronic schizophrenia by analyzing a total of 810 cases. The results showed that TCM combined with antipsychotics have beneficial effects on the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS), including the changes in total score, negative score, and the clinical effects evaluated by the PANSS scale. Subgroup analysis showed that the effects of auxiliary TCM with different efficacy on the positive and psychopathological scores were significantly different. It was found that adjuvant treatment with TCM can reduce some side effects and improve the patient's living conditions in the evaluation of the Schizophrenia Quality Of Life Scale (SQLS). Many studies have proved that TCM is safe and well-tolerated. Although the difficulties of using limited TCM remains to be generalized, it still has great potential in the adjuvant treatment of chronic schizophrenia.
Highlights
Schizophrenia is a serious mental illness with a chronic course
Six databases were selected for all the randomized, controlled clinical trials concerning traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) decoction combined with antipsychotic drugs for the treatment of chronic schizophrenia
Side Effects and Quality of Life there are four trials with TESS scores (Table 2), the results show that there is no significant difference between TCM combine with antipsychotics therapy and antipsychotics alone, but the former therapy seems to ameliorate the score of the Schizophrenia Quality Of Life Scale (SQLS) in some studies (Table 3)
Summary
Schizophrenia is a serious mental illness with a chronic course It represents a large overall neurocognitive impairment (Steffen et al, 2020), characterized by positive symptoms (such as delusions), negative symptoms (such as emotional withdrawal), ideological and cognitive disorders (Waszkiewicz et al, 2012). The current antipsychotic regiment is effective in treating positive symptoms of the disease, but Adjuvant Treatment of TCM of Schizophrenia treatments to mitigate negative symptoms and cognitive areas are still limited (Mailman and Murthy, 2010; Maric et al, 2016). The efficacy and tolerance of antipsychotics have been covered before, people focus on the overall clinical effectiveness of drug treatment in real life and expand upon the concept through functional recovery and self-evaluation of patients (Peuskens, 2004). We can continue to develop more effective interventions and make treatment more specific and targeted
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