Early Intervention Linked With Better Schizophrenia Outcomes
Early intervention services for patients with early-phase psychosis was linked with better outcomes across all meta-analyzable measures, compared with treatment as usual, according to a new meta-analysis published online in JAMA Psychiatry.
“Our meta-analysis demonstrates that early intervention services programs, all of which comprised antipsychotic treatment and various psychosocial interventions, are associated with significant superiority to treatment as usual across a wide range of clinically relevant outcomes, including hospitalization risk, bed-days, symptoms, and global functioning,” researchers wrote.
The meta-analysis spanned 10 randomized clinical trials involving 2176 patients with first-episode psychosis or early-phase schizophrenia spectrum disorders. Outcomes evaluated by researchers included treatment discontinuation; at least 1 psychiatric hospitalization; symptom severity; relapse, remission, and recovery; global functioning and involvement in school or work; and quality of life.
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Across all outcomes, early intervention services were superior to treatment as usual over a 2-year period, researchers reported. Except for severity of general symptoms and depressive symptoms at 18-24 months of treatment, early intervention services demonstrated enhanced effectiveness for all outcomes at 6, 9-12, and 18-24 months of treatment.
“These findings should provide further impetus for the widespread implementation and funding of early intervention services in the United States and across the world,” researchers concluded, “as has already begun.”
—Jolynn Tumolo
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