Psychoeducation Improves Compliance and Outcome in Schizophrenia Without an Increase of Adverse Side Effects: A 7-Year Follow-up of the Munich PIP-Study.

Psychoeducation improves adherence and motivates patients to accept a maintenance therapy as recommended by the guidelines. This would mean a daily consumption of at least 300 chlorpromazine (CPZ) units in the long run and should lead to an increase of the antipsychotic dosage in comparison to patients with treatment as usual (TAU). This raises 2 important questions: whether more side effects are provoked and do the patients have a corresponding benefit with a better outcome.

Valproate for schizophrenia.

Background: Many people with schizophrenia do not achieve a satisfactory treatment response with ordinary antipsychotic drug treatment. In these cases, various add-on medications are used; valproate is one of these.

Objectives: To review the effects of valproate for the treatment of schizophrenia and schizophrenia-like psychoses.

Psychoeducation in schizophrenia: 7-year follow-up concerning rehospitalization and days in hospital in the Munich Psychosis Information Project Study.

Objective: According to most of the relevant guidelines, psychoeducation is considered a basic part of routine therapy for patients with schizophrenia; scientific proofs of its efficacy are based mainly on the results of 1- and 2-year follow-ups. Therefore, the long-term effects of psychoeducation over a period of 7 years were investigated in regard to rehospitalization rates and hospital days.

Method: Of 101 patients with DSM-III-R or ICD-9 schizophrenia randomly allocated to either an intervention group or a control group between 1990 and 1994, 48 patients were available for follow-up after 7 years.