Drug attitude and subjective well-being in antipsychotic treatment monotherapy in real-world settings.
OBJECTIVE
To assess using two well-know scales (DAI-30 and SWN) the drug attitude and subjective well-being of patients treated with haloperidol or second-generation antipsychotics (SGA) in four different Italian communities.


METHODS
The sample included 145 patients taking five different antipsychotics (APs) in mono-therapy: haloperidol, clozapine, olanzapine, risperidone, quetiapine. A stepwise multiple regression analysis (SMRA) was used to analyse the contribution of different AP treatments and of other predictors to SWN and DAI-30 scores.


RESULTS
Univariate analyses showed no differences in DAI-30 and SWN scores across treatments. The SMRA showed that SWN scores were negatively correlated with the severity of the psychoses (BPRS scores), while the DAI-30 scores were negatively correlated with the severity of the psychoses and positively correlated both with the length of drug treatment and with the use of olanzapine.


CONCLUSIONS
Our study does not confirm a better drug attitude in patients treated with SGA with respect to haloperidol. The only partial exception is the better performance of olanzapine over haloperidol on DAI-30, which could be due to the lower use of anticholinergic drugs during olanzapine treatment. The differences between the SWN and DAI-30 may give good reason for the use of both instruments during AP treatments.
Balestrieri
Matteo
M
Clinica di Psichiatria, Inter-University Centre for Behavioural Neurosciences, DPMSC, University of Udine, Udine. matteo.balestrieri@uniud.it
Di Sciascio
Guido
G
Isola
Miriam
M
Lomonaco
Emanuele
E
Maso
Elisa
E
Merli
Roberto
R
Calò
Salvatore
S
Bellantuono
Cesario
C
D000328:Adult; D014150:Antipsychotic Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D001290:Attitude; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male
D014150:Antipsychotic Agents