Time course of antipsychotic treatment response in schizophrenia: Results from a naturalistic study in 280 patients

To describe the course of positive and negative symptoms during inpatient treatment and examine remission and response rates under routine clinical care conditions.Two hundred and eighty inpatients with schizophrenia (DSM-IV criteria) were assessed with the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) at admission and at biweekly intervals until discharge from hospital. Remission was defined according to the symptom-severity component of the consensus criteria (Remission in Schizophrenia Working Group) as a rating of three or less in the relevant PANSS items at discharge, and response as a reduction of at least 20% in the PANSS total score from admission to discharge.The mean duration of in…