Trial reportThe British journal of psychiatry : the journal of mental science2025
The association between relapse and the outcome of schizophrenia and recurrent psychotic disorders.
Trial report in The British journal of psychiatry : the journal of mental science, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundHaving a relapse of schizophrenia or recurrent psychosis is feared by patients, can cause social and personal disruption and has been suggested to cause long-term deterioration, possibly because of a toxic biological process.
aimsTo assess whether relapse affected the social and clinical outcomes of people enrolled in a 24-month randomised controlled trial of antipsychotic medication dose reduction versus maintenance treatment.
methodsThe trial involved participants with a diagnosis of schizophrenia or recurrent, non-affective psychosis. Relapse was defined as admission to hospital or significant deterioration (assessed by a blinded end-point committee). We analysed the relationship between relapse during the trial and social functioning, quality of life, symptom scores (Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale) and rates of being in employment, education or training at 24-month follow-up. We also analysed changes in these measures during the trial among those who relapsed and those who did not. Sensitivity analyses were conducted examining the effects of 'severe' relapse (i.e. admission to hospital).
resultsDuring the course of the trial, 82 out of 253 participants relapsed. There was no evidence for a difference between those who relapsed and those who did not on changes in social functioning, quality of life, symptom scores or overall employment rates between baseline and 24-month follow-up. Those who relapsed showed no change in their social functioning or quality of life, and a slight improvement in symptoms compared to baseline. They were more likely than those who did not relapse to have had a change in their employment status (mostly moving out of employment, education or training), although numbers changing status were small. Sensitivity analyses showed the same results for those who experienced a 'severe' relapse.
conclusionsOur data provide little evidence that relapse has a detrimental effect in the long term in people with schizophrenia and recurrent psychosis.
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