Drug Treatments for Schizophrenia + evaluation (AO3)

Antipsychotics

Medication used to control psychosis such as delusions and hallucinations. They are taken by pills or injections.

Drug Therapy

Drug treatments are used to block neurotransmitter receptors like dopamine receptors to decrease the hyperactivity of the mesolimbic dopaminergic pathway which reduces the effects of dopamine which often then helps alleviate the positive symptoms of hallucinations or delusions.

Typical Anti-psychotics (first-generation)

Dopamine antagonists as they interfere with the dopamine system.

They reduce dopamine activity by blocking dopamine receptors on the post-synaptic neuron, inducing a calming effect

Ex: Chlorpromazine - reduces positive symptoms. Side effects - dry mouth, constipation, lethargy, and tardive dyskinesia

Atypical Anti-psychotics (second generation)

Used to avoid the severe side effects caused by typical treatments and reduces both positive and negative symptoms.

Ex: Clozapine - blocks dopamine, serotonin, glutamine, and acetylcholine receptors. Side effects - Weight gain, cardiovascular problems, but no tardive dyskinesia.

Leucht (2013)

Meta analysis on 212 studies on the effectiveness of antipsychotic drugs that help normalize dopamine levels.

He found that the drugs were more effective than placebos, suggesting that targeting the dopamine system are effective in reducing symptoms.

Bagnall (2003)

Meta analysis on 232 studies comparing the effectiveness of typical and atypical anti-psychotics.

Atypical drugs resulted to be more effective and caused fewer side effects. Clozapine found to be the most effective drug used.

Tarrier (1998)

Placed patients randomly on anti-psychotic medication or anti-psychotic medication with CBT. Patients in the combine treatment had significant improvement in reducing positive and negative symptoms and spent fewer days in the hospital receiving care. This suggest that using an interactionalist approach to SZ is the most effective.

Drug Therapy impact on research

Drug therapies may only be suppressing symptoms, rather than solving the cause of the symptoms.

Pitschel-Walz et al. (2001)

Found an average decrease in relapse rates of 20% for schizophrenic patients whose families attended family therapy interventions.