Effectiveness in controlling symptoms with long-acting injectable aripiprazole

Abstract

Introduction

Depot antipsychotic treatment has been a radical change in the evolution and prognosis of patients with schizophrenia. Long-acting injectable aripiprazole is an anti-psychotic dopamine partial agonist. It has a good tolerance in terms of metabolism and prolactine level.

Objetives

Studying the causes of readmission at the acute unit of Marqués de Valdecilla university hospital (HUMV) in patients treated with Long-acting injectable aripiprazole LAI 400 mg.

Methodology

This is a descriptive study which pretends to assess the causes of readmission in a sample of 30 patients (12 women, 18 men) with non-affective psychosis, which had entered the acute unit of HUMV from 1st January to 30th September 2016 because of psychotic decompensations and had been treated with long-acting injectable aripiprazole 400 mg.

Results

Out of the 30 patients there were five readmissions during the observation time. Two of them for psychotic decompensation, two because of premature abandonments, with oral aripiprazole supplementation and the last one because of desertion of injectable drug. No gender differences were observed.

Conclusions

It is necessary 15 days of oral supplementation before and after the first dose of long-acting injectable aripiprazole to ensure that adequate therapeutic levels are achieved and to avoid readmissions by misuse of the drug. One of the limitations encountered in this work would be the small sample size and limited observation time. A longer-term research may allow to find more scientific evidence to clarify the clinical safety and efficacy of long-acting injectable aripiprazole in patients with non-affective psychosis.

Disclosure of interest

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.