Ayaktan Takip Edilen Şizofreni Hastalarının Takip Sürelerini Etkileyen Sosyodemografik, Hastalık ve Tedaviye Ait Özellikler.

Objective: This study aims to compare the long term monitored schizophrenic patients to short term monitored patients with respect to sociodemographic, disorder and treatment characteristics and prognosis in outpatient practices. Method: In this study, files of schizophrenic patients referred first time to the outpatient psychiatry clinic of Medical School of Uludag University during the years 1998-2005 were examined. With a form, socio-demographic, disorder and treatment characteristics and prognosis of the patients were questioned. The recruited 274 patients were examined in two groups as long term monitored (>2 years) patients and short term monitored (<2 years) patients. Initially prescribed antipsychotics were divided into two groups as Atypical and Typical antipsychotics. Results: Sixty four of 131 long term monitored patients (48.9%) underwent treatment alteration at least once during the entire follow up period while only 24 of 143 short term monitored patients (16.8%) underwent treatment modification at least once (p<0.001). Antipsychotic was not changed however some of them received another psychotrophic agent in combination with the former one in 58% of the patients that was followed up for long term. Age of the patient (p<0.01), duration of antipsychotic use (p<0.001), frequency of attacks (p<0.05), and hospitalization (p<0.001) were greater in long term monitored patients. The use of anticholinerjic agents (p<0.05) and adjuvant antipsychotics (p<0.01) were much more common in long term monitored patients. Conclusions: Age of the patient, duration of antipsychotic usage and frequency of attacks and and hospitalization may influence the monitoring of the schizophrenic patients in the outpatient clinics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]