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Drug Withdrawal in Male and Female Chronic Schizophrenics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

M. H. Abenson
M. H. Abenson*
Affiliation:
Sefton General Hospital, Liverpool, 15
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Extract

Although the value of phenothiazines is without question in the treatment of acute schizophrenia, their value in chronic schizophrenia is questionable. Cawley (1) states that social and environmental factors become more prominent for symptom relief and social adjustment with increasing chronicity. Both Ekblom and Lassenius (2) and Simon et al. (7), who did long-term follow-up studies on drug-treated schizophrenics, found only slight improvement when compared with control groups. Letemendia and Harris (4) found no significant improvement on phenothiazine treatment of previously untreated chronic schizophrenics when compared with a control group. On the other hand Kelly and Sargant (3) found a distinct improvement after two years in a group of phenothiazine-treated patients, who were compared with earlier admissions to the same hospital before the introduction of drugs. However, whilst Pritchard (6) found the short term prognosis was better for phenothiazine-treated schizophrenics when compared with patients admitted prior to introduction of these drugs, he found the three-year follow-up produced little difference.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 115 , Issue 525 , August 1969 , pp. 961 - 962
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1969 

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References

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