Evaluation of patients' subjective well-being under neuroleptic treatment in a naturalistic setting: 24 months results of the SOHO-study

Objective: Patients' subjective experience of antipsychotic treatment is crucial for medication adherence and quality of life. However, long-term data on subjective well-being of schizophrenic patients treated with antipsychotics is still scarce.

Methods: The Subjective Well-being under Neuroleptics scale (SWN, range 20–120) was used to evaluate well-being under different antipsychotic medications over a period of 24 months for monotherapy completers. Results: SWN was analyzed for 1790 patients with AP monotherapy at baseline and 1139 patients who were still treated with the initiated AP at month 24. Median (Q1-Q3) SWN total score increase at 24 months compared to baseline was as follows: OLZ n=689: 22.5 (9.2–38.0), RIS n=137: 17.0 (7.0–34.0), QUET n=62: 16.0 (7.0–28.0), AMI n=57: 21.0 (7.0–36.0), TypOral n=72: 10.0 (0.0–23.0), TypDep n=75: 13.0 (2.0–24.6), CLZ n=38: 17.7 (7.0–33.0). Analyses of the SWN subscores (range 4 to 24) showed an increase in all categories for all treatments observed. The numerically strongest median improvements were for the following medications: Mental Functioning: OLZ 5; Self Control: OLZ 4; Emotional Regulation: OLZ, AMI, CLZ 4; Physical Functioning: OLZ, AMI 5; Social Integration: CLZ 5. Conclusion: Antipsychotics, in particular atypicals, exerted a beneficial impact on SWN throughout 24-month of monotherapy treatment completers. Further analyses based on other cohort definitions were calculated to assess the robustness of results.