title: Treatment Response in First-episode Schizophrenia.
abstract: First episode schizophrenia (FES) patients tend to be more responsive to treatment. An adequate response has been associated with a favourable long-term course in FES patients. Yet, despite the generally very favourable response profile around one quarter of the patients shows persisting symptoms of psychosis. To improve the outcome and course of psychosis great effort has emerged in identifying biological and clinical variables associated with non-response in order to identify non-responders as early as possible and adopt specific treatment strategies improving illness outcome. Different antipsychotic treatment regimens have been evaluated in terms of their efficacy in reducing symptoms of FES with psychological interventions gaining increasing importance in the treatment concept of patients suffering from their first illness episode. Therefore, aim of this review is to summarize current evidence on the response patterns, the most important predictors of response/non-response as well as on effective treatment interventions in FES patients.
authors: Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.
authors: Rebecca
authors: R
authors: Schennach
authors: Michael
authors: M
authors: Riedel
authors: Richard
authors: R
authors: Musil
authors: Hans-Jürgen
authors: HJ
authors: Möller
keywords: Course of illness; First-episode schizophrenia; Outcome; Predictors; Response; Treatment interventions