The effect of antipsychotic treatment in hebephrenic schizophrenia on hospitalization indicators in an adult inpatient and outpatient population
The effect of antipsychotic treatment in hebephrenic schizophrenia on hospitalization indicators in an adult inpatient and outpatient population

Summary/Abstract: Objectives: Out of all clinical forms of schizophrenia, the hebephrenic type is the leastresponsive to antipsychotic treatment and most difficult to manage. This characteristic resultsin a high average number of hospitalizations, more frequent institutionalization, generatingadditional cost for health care providers. With this argument in mind, we want to determine ifthere is a correlation between the primary hospitalization indicators and differences inantipsychotic treatment.Methods: We anonymously collected data on all patients admitted in the Socola Institute ofPsychiatry over the last five years with a confirmed diagnosis of hebephrenic schizophrenia.We logged the data regarding the age and sex of the patients, admission and discharge date,type of admission (inpatient or outpatient) as well as data regarding treatmentrecommendations at discharge. We performed statistical analysis, calculating for basicstatistical indicators as well as variance, confidence interval, standard error and p-values.Results: We included in our study 34 inpatients with hebephrenic schizophrenia, 19outpatients and 4 institutionalized patients. Variance on all of the parameters we tested was high resulting weak statistical significance. Statistically significant correlations were foundbetween the type of antipsychotic treatment (typical, atypical, both) and hospitalizationperiod and between the type of antipsychotic treatment (oral, depot) and duration betweenhospitalizations.Conclusion: Our study found multiple correlations between the type of antipsychoticprescribed and hospitalization indicators, but due to the high variance of the samples, manyof them proved not significant statistically. In the cases where a statistical significance wasfound, further investigation is necessary in order to establish the causal relationship betweenthe parameters that we tested, and to establish if these correlations have a beneficial impacton the cost of the medical assistance and patients’ quality of life.

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