Conventional antipsychotic agents are not effective against negative symptoms of schizophrenia and are also noted for their extrapyramidal side effects. Risperidone is a noval antipsychotic agent whose dual antagonism of dopamine and serotonin receptors is believed to underlie its efficacy against negative symptoms and the low incidence of extrapyramidal side effects. An open, non-comparative s...

AIM The aim of this study was to assess the mental state of patients treated with psychotropic drugs (LPT) and bromocriptine (BRC) at the same time. METHODS 25 female patients in the stable mental state treated with antipsychotics (LPP) (13 patients were also treated with other LPT) with an average age of 25.56 years were included in the study. All patients presented clinical symptoms of HPRL...

BACKGROUND Antipsychotic medications facilitate the improvement of psychotic symptoms in patients with first-episode psychosis. Paliperidone extended-release (pali-ER), an atypical antipsychotic, was assessed for efficacy and safety in Chinese patients with first-episode psychosis. METHODS In this 8-week, open-label, single-arm, multicenter study, patients with first-episode psychosis (Diagno...

The aims of this study were to investigate experienced stigma and discrimination and their associated factors in people with schizophrenia who live in the community in Guangzhou, China. A total of 384 people with schizophrenia were randomly recruited from four districts of Guangzhou and completed the scales and questionnaires: Internalized Stigma of Mental Illness scale (ISMI), Self-Esteem Scal...

BACKGROUND Non-adherence to antipsychotic medication in schizophrenic patients is common and associated with symptom relapse and poorer long-term outcomes. The risk factors for treatment non-adherence include dosing frequency and complexity. Besides, slower dose titration in an acute schizophrenic episode may lead to attenuated efficacy. Therefore, the convenient dosage regimen and rapid initia...

Risperidone is an atypical antipsychotic agent with efficacy for both positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia. However, what makes an antipsychotic 'atypical' remains unclear. We recently found that the T102C polymorphism in the 5-HT2A receptor gene could affect risperidone's efficacy for negative symptoms. The present study investigated the effect of the Ser311Cys polymorphism in the d...

We read with interest Dr Duggal’s letter on the combined use of atypical antipsychotics (AAs) and cognitivebehavioural therapy (CBT) in schizophrenia (1). Dr Duggal reports that his patient showed a reduction of 54% in symptom severity as indexed by the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS). His baseline score when unmedicated was 129 and varied from 83 to 102 with medication; when medic...

OBJECTIVE To investigate the effects of memantine, an N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist, on cognitive impairments in patients with chronic schizophrenia. METHODS A 12-week, placebo-controlled trial was conducted to determine the effectiveness of memantine as an adjunctive treatment with conventional antipsychotic medications in 26 patients with chronic schizophrenia. The subject...

OBJECTIVE Poor premorbid adjustment has been reported to be a predictor of more severe psychotic symptoms and poor quality of life in such psychotic disorders as schizophrenia. However, most studies were performed on chronic schizophrenic patients, and proposed the likelihood of recall biases and the effect of chronicity. The aim of this study was to investigate these factors in a sample of fir...

BACKGROUND Clozapine is the last-line antipsychotic agent for refractory schizophrenia. To date, there is no convincing evidence for augmentation on clozapine. Activation of N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors, including inhibition of D-amino acid oxidase that may metabolize D-amino acids, has been reported to be beneficial for patients receiving antipsychotics other than clozapine. This study aimed...