Publication Date

2014

Journal Title

Dialogues Clin Neurosci

Abstract

The search for clinical outcome predictors for schizophrenia is as old as the field of psychiatry. However, despite a wealth of large, longitudinal studies into prognostic factors, only very few clinically useful outcome predictors have been identified. The goal of future treatment is to either affect modifiable risk factors, or use nonmodifiable factors to parse patients into therapeutically meaningful subgroups. Most clinical outcome predictors are nonspecific and/or nonmodifiable. Nonmodifiable predictors for poor odds of remission include male sex, younger age at disease onset, poor premorbid adjustment, and severe baseline psychopathology. Modifiable risk factors for poor therapeutic outcomes that clinicians can act upon include longer duration of untreated illness, nonadherence to antipsychotics, comorbidities (especially substance-use disorders), lack of early antipsychotic response, and lack of improvement with non-clozapine antipsychotics, predicting clozapine response. It is hoped that this limited capacity for prediction will improve as pathophysiological understanding increases and/or new treatments for specific aspects of schizophrenia become available.

Volume Number

16

Issue Number

4

Pages

505-24

Document Type

Article

EPub Date

2015/03/04

Status

Faculty, Northwell Researcher

Facility

School of Medicine; Northwell Health

Primary Department

Psychiatry

Additional Departments

Molecular Medicine

PMID

25733955


Included in

Psychiatry Commons

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