title: Holistic Consideration of Patients with Schizophrenia to Improve Medication Adherence and Outcomes.
abstract: Although several algorithms have been applied to treat patients with schizophrenia, their clinical use remains still limited, because most emphasize the prescription of antipsychotics. A new algorithm with a more holistic approach to treating patients with schizophrenia, to be used before applying traditional prescribing guidelines, was thus proposed by an expert team of Taiwanese psychiatrists. In this algorithm, several important treatment tasks/modalities are proposed, including long-acting injection antipsychotics, shared decision-making, a case management system, compulsory treatment by law, community rehabilitation programs, the patients' feeling about their health care professionals (patients' behaviors) and their attitude/knowledge of their conditions/ illness. This study proposes that evaluating the medication adherence of patients can be determined by two key domains, namely patients' behaviors and attitudes. Based on different levels of their behaviors (X-axis) and attitude/knowledge (Y-axis), it is possible to categorize patients with schizophrenia into six subgroups, for which various different interventions, including the use of antipsychotics, could be applied and integrated. Further research is needed to assess the applicability of this treatment algorithm in clinical settings.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, National Cheng Kung University Hospital, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Lan-Ting
authors.initials: LT
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, National Cheng Kung University Hospital, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan.|Addiction Research Center, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Kao Chin
authors.initials: KC
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, National Cheng Kung University Hospital, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan.|Department of Psychiatry, National Cheng Kung University, Dou-Liou Branch, Yunlin, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Wei Hung
authors.initials: WH
authors.lastname: Chang
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, National Cheng Kung University Hospital, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan.|Addiction Research Center, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Po See
authors.initials: PS
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, National Cheng Kung University Hospital, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan.|Addiction Research Center, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan.|Department of Psychiatry, National Cheng Kung University, Dou-Liou Branch, Yunlin, Taiwan.
authors.forename: I Hui
authors.initials: IH
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, National Cheng Kung University Hospital, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan.|Addiction Research Center, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Yen Kuang
authors.initials: YK
authors.lastname: Yang
keywords: Algorithms; Antipsychotics; Holistic therapies; Schizophrenia