Depot Versus Oral Antipsychotics in Patients with Schizophrenia: Which is Better on Side Effects, Functional Improvement, and Life Satisfaction

Objective: Schizophrenia is a chronic mental disorder that reduces quality of life, causes deterioration in social and occupational functioning, and requires continuous care for psychosocial rehabilitation. The aim of this study was to investigate functional improvement, life satisfaction, and drug side effects in patients with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder using depot antipsychotics, oral antipsychotics, or both. Methods: The study included 162 patients with clinically stable schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder who were regularly followed up at the Rize Community Mental Health Center for at least 1 year. The Satisfaction with Life Scale (SLS), Glasgow Antipsychotic Side-Effect Scale (GASS), and Functional Remission of General Schizophrenia (FROGS) scale were administered to patients with available sociodemographic and clinical data. Results: There were significant differences between the groups with respect to age at onset, number of hospitalizations, and gender. The mean GASS score of patients using both depot and oral antipsychotics was significantly higher than that of those using only depot antipsychotics. There was no significant difference between the groups in terms of mean SLS, total FROGS scores, and sub-dimension FROGS scores. Conclusion: It was concluded that it would be appropriate to prefer depot antipsychotics in the presence of poor prognostic factors such as medication non-adherence, frequent hospitalization, and lack of insight. There is a need for multicenter prospective studies with longer follow-up of patients for side effects, life satisfaction, quality of life, and functional improvement to achieve more significant results.