Benefits of Community-based Treatment for Patients with Schizophrenia: Based on Long-acting Injectable Antipsychotic Agents

Abstract

Schizophrenia could affect the social and occupational functions of patients in the long term. Community-based mental health services and management models promote mental health by improving accessibility, acceptability, affordability, practicality and scalability. In the community management model, long-acting injectable antipsychotic agents are one of the main strategies for the treatment of schizophrenia, but there is a lack of relevant evidence. This paper systematically and comprehensively discussed the benefits of long-acting injectable antipsychotic agents in patients with schizophrenia, including effectiveness and safety, compliance, attitude to use, social function recovery and community rehabilitation. The results of this study showed that long-acting injectable antipsychotic agents can exert superior efficacy than oral drugs in the community rehabilitation of schizophrenia patients under different community management modes, not only reflected in the disease recurrence rate and readmission rate, but also in the recovery of social functioning and the reduction of accident rate and other aspects of excellent performance. However, the overall prescription rate of long-acting injectable antipsychotic agents is still low in China. The main reasons include insufficient information sharing between medical institutions and communities in primary level, low community medical services and treatment rate, low follow-up rate of patients, and less community psychiatric rehabilitation. This study can provide some references for the community treatment of schizophrenia patients in China, explore more community treatment programs, and improve the treatment effect and quality of life of schizophrenia patients in China.

Keywords

• schizophrenia|antipsychotic agents|depot preparation|long-acting injectable antipsychotic agents|community treatment|benefits|medication adherence