AI Article Synopsis
- Many people who can’t stand trial have serious mental illnesses, like psychosis.
- Clozapine is a special medicine that works better than other treatments for some patients but is not often used, even for those in legal situations.
- In a study, only 25 out of 240 defendants were given clozapine, and while some improved, it worked less well for them compared to those who didn’t get that medicine.
Article Abstract
Most defendants found incompetent to stand trial have psychotic illnesses. Clozapine has been shown to be superior to other antipsychotic medications in treatment-resistant schizophrenia. It is vastly underutilized, however, including in forensic settings. To our knowledge, there have been no studies exploring the risks and benefits of clozapine for incompetent to stand trial defendants with severe mental illness. We sought to explore the characteristics of patients who were prescribed clozapine in a retrospective sample of defendants deemed incompetent to stand trial with diagnoses of psychotic and bipolar disorders. We found that 25 of 240 defendants (10%) were prescribed clozapine, with 15 (60%) eventually being discharged on it. Of those 15, 8 defendants were successfully restored to competency to stand trial. The restoration rate in the clozapine group was much lower than in the non-clozapine group (32% versus 87%). Our results emphasize the need for prospective comparative studies assessing the efficacy and tolerability of clozapine and other antipsychotic medications related to restoration of competency to stand trial.
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| http://dx.doi.org/10.29158/JAAPL.200051-20 | DOI Listing |
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