Combined Treatment With Amisulpride in Patients With Schizophrenia Discharged From a Short-Term Hospitalization Unit: A 1-Year Retrospective Study

Objective: Antipsychotic monotherapy is considered as the reference standard in the pharmacological treatment of schizophrenia. Nonethe-less, there is a large rate of studies showing polypharmacy with anti-psychotics as more frequent than would be expected attending experts_ recommendations. The objective of this study is to describe poly-pharmacy with antipsychotic regimen in patients with schizophrenia discharged with amisulpride from the short-term hospitalization unit. Methods: We have analyzed the prescription of psychotropic drugs upon discharge of 52 patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder who were discharged with amisulpride from January to December 2005. Variables were included to describe the following treatments: antipsychotic (drug and dose), benzodiazepine, and anti-cholinergic drugs. Sociodemographic and clinical variables were also collected. Results: In the group treated with 2 antipsychotics, the most fre-quently used common combination was with a classic antipsychotic in depot formulation. Patients (17.5%) were prescribed to another 2 anti-psychotics in addition to amisulpride, being the most common com-bination with a second generation antipsychotic, and a classic or depot antipsychotic. Conclusions: The results of our study show that the use of amisul-pride as an adjuvant can be a suitable therapeutic strategy for patients with schizophrenia resistant to treatment and for the rapid control of symptoms in schizophrenic patients with acute episodes. However, its clinical use does not have to be reserved exclusively for patients with resistant schizophrenia to clozapine. Key Words: schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, antipsychotics, polypharmacy, amisulprid