Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T17:06:05.688Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Physician observations and perceptions of positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia: A multinational, cross-sectional survey

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2007

Yves Lecrubier ,
Richard Perry ,
Gary Milligan ,
Oscar Leeuwenkamp  and
Robert Morlock
Yves Lecrubier*
Affiliation:
Unité INSERM 302, Pavillon Clérambault, Hô pital Pitié Salpêtriére, 47 Boulevard de l’Hô pital, F-75013Paris, France
Richard Perry
Affiliation:
Adelphi Group Products, Bollington, Cheshire, UK
Gary Milligan
Affiliation:
Adelphi Group Products, Bollington, Cheshire, UK
Oscar Leeuwenkamp
Affiliation:
NV Organon, Oss, The Netherlands
Robert Morlock
Affiliation:
Pfizer Inc., New York, NY, USA
*
∗Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected] (Y. Lecrubier).
Get access

Abstract

Purpose

To describe physicians' observations and perceptions of patients with schizophrenia and to obtain information about antipsychotic prescribing practices.

Methods

Psychiatrists in the United States and five European countries (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom) who prescribed antipsychotics for ≥15 patients with schizophrenia within the preceding 3 months provided data on their patients' demographic and clinical characteristics and their antipsychotic prescribing practices and drug attributes influencing treatment choice.

Results

Data were collected from 872 physicians on 6523 patients (85% European, 15% US). Most patients were aged 25–44 years, 63% were men, and 66% were outpatients. About 50% of patients were moderately to grossly dysfunctional; about 50% were unemployed; 34% and 75% were taking conventional or atypical antipsychotics, respectively. Frequently identified positive symptoms included delusions (73%), disordered thought (59%), and hallucinations (59%); common negative symptoms included social withdrawal (54%), impoverished thought (39%), and blunted affect (38%). Reasons for antipsychotic selection included efficacy for positive (90%) or negative symptoms (62%) and tolerability (47%). Inadequate control was reported more frequently for negative (71–77%) than positive (47–60%) symptoms. Adverse events included sedation, weight gain, and extrapyramidal symptoms.

Conclusions

In this large, multinational, cross-sectional survey, physicians reported that positive symptoms were more common than negative symptoms. Treatment for positive symptoms was more successful than that for negative symptoms, with physicians considering treatment inadequate for >70% of patients with negative symptoms.

Keywords

SchizophreniaNegative symptomsPositive symptomsAntipsychoticsPrescribing practicesSurvey data
Type
Original article
Information
European Psychiatry , Volume 22 , Issue 6 , September 2007 , pp. 371 - 379
Copyright
Copyright © Elsevier Masson SAS 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

American Psychiatric Association Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders. 4th ed. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association; 2000.text revision.Google Scholar
American Psychiatric Association. Practice guideline for the treatment of patients with schizophrenia. 2004. [cited 2006 September 7]; 2: [Available from: www.psych.org/psych_pract/treatg/pg/2004APAGDP.pdf].Google Scholar
Andreasen, N.C.Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms (SANS). Iowa City, IA: University of Iowa; 1981.Google Scholar
Dossenbach, M., Arango-Davila, C., Silva Ibarra, H., Landa, E., Aguilar, J., Caro, O.et al.Response and relapse in patients with schizophrenia treated with olanzapine, risperidone, quetiapine, or haloperidol: 12-month follow-up of the Intercontinental Schizophrenia Outpatient Health Outcomes (IC-SOHO) study. J Clin Psychiatry 2005;66(8):1021–1030.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Farmer, D, Claerhout, B, Mehnert, A, Ingham, M, Jacobs, A, on behalf of the e-STAR study group. The Electronic Schizophrenia Treatment Adherence Registry: an electronic registry to evaluate outcomes data in patients. International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research 7th European Congress, Hamburg, Germany, October 24–26; 2004.Google Scholar
Haro, J.M., Edgell, E.T., Jones, P.B., Alonso, J., Gavart, S., Gregor, K.J.et al.The European Schizophrenia Outpatient Health Outcomes (SOHO) study: rationale, methods and recruitment. Acta Psychiatr Scand 2003;107(3):222–232.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kay, S.R., Fiszbein, A., Opler, L.A.The positive and negative syndrome scale (PANSS) for schizophrenia. Schizophr Bull 1987;13(2):261–276.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leucht, S., Wahlbeck, K., Hamann, J., Kissling, W.New generation antipsychotics versus low-potency conventional antipsychotics: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Lancet 2003;361(9369):1581–1589.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lieberman, J.A., Stroup, T.S., McEvoy, J.P., Swartz, M.S., Rosenheck, R.A., Perkins, D.O.et al.Effectiveness of antipsychotic drugs in patients with chronic schizophrenia. N Engl J Med 2005;353(12):1209–1223.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Marder, S.R., Davis, J.M., Chouinard, G.The effects of risperidone on the five dimensions of schizophrenia derived by factor analysis: combined results of the North American trials. J Clin Psychiatry 1997;58(12):538–546.Google ScholarPubMed
Moller, H.J., Bottlender, R., Wegner, U., Wittmann, J., Strauss, A.Long-term course of schizophrenic, affective and schizoaffective psychosis: focus on negative symptoms and their impact on global indicators of outcome. Acta Psychiatr Scand Suppl 2000;407:54–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Raskin, A., Pelchat, R., Sood, R., Alphs, L.D., Levine, J.Negative symptom assessment of chronic schizophrenia patients. Schizophr Bull 1993;19(3):627–635.Google ScholarPubMed
Tamminga, C.A., Buchanan, R.W., Gold, J.M.The role of negative symptoms and cognitive dysfunction in schizophrenia outcome. Int Clin Psychopharmacol 1998;13(suppl 3):S21–S26.Google ScholarPubMed
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.