Maintenance antipsychotic medication has a key role in the long term management of schizophrenia but in clinical practice its effectiveness is often reduced by poor adherence. Antipsychotic long acting injections (LAIs) can improve clinical outcomes in those who have adhered poorly with oral medication.

To compare patients’ attitudes, satisfaction and tolerability to their currently prescribed LAI, either a FGA-LAI or risperidone long-acting injection (RLAI), which was the only SGA-LAI at the time of this research.

Cross-sectional survey of a representative sample of patients prescribed a FGA-LAI (n = 39) or RLAI (n = 28) for a minimum of 6 months. Assessments comprised drug attitude inventory (DAI-30), tolerability measured by Liverpool university neuroleptic side effect rating scale (LUNSERS) and satisfaction with antipsychotic medication by the SWAM scale.

The DAI-30 score for patients on FGA depots was 16.18 and RLAI was 14.43, which indicated positive attitudes in both the groups. This difference did not reach statistical significance (p = 0.491). Further analysis, based on both the LUNSERS and SWAM scales, did not find any significant difference in tolerability and patient satisfaction.

There was no evidence of differences between FGA-LAIs and RLAI in terms of patient rated tolerability, attitudes and satisfaction. Both groups of patients had positive attitudes to their LAI and overall tolerability was good. This data is observational, and not from a randomised design, which may reflect selection bias. Randomised studies are needed to further investigate differences in tolerability and attitudes between specific LAIs.