Antipsychotic long-acting injections have been a great progress in the management of mental disorders and have improved the adherence to treatment. Paliperidone palmitate permits once a month administration, has a good antipsychotic power, is well tolerated and has a few adverse affects.

We want to study wether there is a reduction in the drop out and admissions in hospital rates.

We take all patients in treatment with paliperidone palmitate from commercialization of the product two years ago (n=70), at two community mental health center in Malaga, Spain. We are going to measure the following variables: age, gender, average dosage, presence or not of politherapy with other antipsychotcs, time in treatment, diagnosis, attitude towards medication (using Drug Attitudes Inventory –DAI-), drop out and its cause and number of admissions before and after treatment with paliperidone palmitate.

We are analysing data. Up to date we have the following results: n=70; 65% male, 35% female; average 38,2 years, most of them in politherapy; average 339 days in treatment: the majority of patients has received the diagnosis of schizophrenia, although there are other diagnosis like bipolar disorder, schizoaffective disorder, personality disorder and substance abuse disorder. We have observed a reduction of medication drop out and number of admissions, but it has not been measured yet.

Our group consider (with the preliminary results) that paliperidone palmitate involves an advance in the treatment of schizophrenia and other mental disorders, a reduction of number of admissions and an improvement of adherence.