COMPARATIVE PROFILE OF ATYPICAL ANTIPSYCHOTICS IN PATIENTS OF SCHIZOPHRENIA
*Dr. Mridul Sharma, Dr. A. Q. Siddiqui, Dr. Prerana Gupta, Dr. Seema Singh, Dr. Shweta Chauhan
ABSTRACT
Aims & Objectives: To evaluate the effectiveness of various atypical antipsychotics in psychopathology of schizophrenic patients. Methodology: 40 patients diagnosed as per DSM 5 criteria for Schizophrenia admitted in the In-patient department of psychiatry at a tertiary care hospital participated in the study after obtaining due consent. 10 patients each were randomly assigned to treatment with the following four atypical antipsychotics: Olanzapine, Risperidone, Quetiapine and Aripiprazole. Positive and Negative Symptom Scale (PANSS) was administered on the first day of admission to assess baseline pathology followed by successive administration of PANSS at Day 7, Month 1 and Month 2 following initiation of treatment to assess the extent of improvement with various drugs. Results were tabulated using SPSS v20 and independent sample t tests were applied. Results: Most significant improvement in psychopathology was seen in patients on treatment with Risperidone followed by Olanzapine. There was a significant difference found (p<0.05) between the PANSS score for Risperidone and Aripiprazole at 2 months. Conclusion: This study shows similar results as demonstrated by comparable studies done in other countries. The baseline psychopathology as calculated using PANSS scores showed improvement after 2 months of antipsychotic treatment with all antipsychotics evaluated in this study.
Keywords: Schizophrenia, Positive and Negative Symptom Scale (PANSS), Risperidone, Olanzapine, Quetiapine, Aripiprazole.
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