Depressive symptoms and schizophrenic relapses: the effect of four neuroleptic drugs. Academic Article uri icon

Overview

abstract

  • 1. A prevalence of depressive symptomatology, ranging from 25% to 80% has been reported during the course of schizophrenia. 2. Depressive symptoms were assessed in 144 schizophrenic patients (DSM IV) during an acute exacerbation phase. 3. Depressive symptoms showed a prevalence ranging from 5.5% (severe clinical pictures) to 54.8 (mild clinical pictures). 4. The authors did not find a correlation between depressive symptoms per se and the presence of negative psychotic symptoms. Depression may be linked not so much to negative symptoms but to the psychotic state itself. 5. Depressive symptomatology concurrently occurred with schizophrenic relapses and improved together with the psychotic clinical picture, independently of the neuroleptic drug employed. Haloperidol, haloperidol decanoate and fluphenazine decanoate all showed a similar improvement of depressive symptoms. 6. L-sulpiride showed a trend to be most effective on depressive symptomatology in comparison to the other neuroleptics.

publication date

  • January 1, 1999

Research

keywords

  • Antipsychotic Agents
  • Depression
  • Schizophrenia

Identity

Scopus Document Identifier

  • 0032980211

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

  • 10.1016/s0278-5846(98)00090-6

PubMed ID

  • 10368855

Additional Document Info

volume

  • 23

issue

  • 1