EDITORIAL Why we should use long-acting injectable antipsychotics more frequently

Depot antipsychotic drugs, or long-acting injectable antipsychotics (LAIs), have been available since the 1960s and were conceived mainly to improve adherence to treatment in patients with schizophrenia. Even though it is known that more than half of the patients with schizophrenia do not properly comply with oral medica-tion treatments1 and that LAIs are the best choice for such cases, the prescription of these drugs has sig-nificantly decreased over the years. Indeed, less than 30 % of patients with schizophrenia are currently treated with LAIs.2 There is a widespread belief that LAIs have more and even worse adverse effects than their equivalent oral preparations. Although there is support for this notion in the literature,3 a recent review of randomized controlle