Prospective Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2022. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Psychiatry. Mar 19, 2022; 12(3): 521-532
Published online Mar 19, 2022. doi: 10.5498/wjp.v12.i3.521
Trajectories of response in schizophrenia-spectrum disorders: A one-year prospective cohort study of antipsychotic effectiveness
Petros Drosos, Erik Johnsen, Christoffer Andreas Bartz-Johannessen, Tor Ketil Larsen, Solveig Klæbo Reitan, Maria Rettenbacher, Rune Andreas Kroken
Petros Drosos, Tor Ketil Larsen, TIPS-Network for Clinical Research in Psychosis, Clinic For Adult Mental Health, Stavanger University Hospital, Stavanger 4011, Norway
Petros Drosos, Erik Johnsen, Christoffer Andreas Bartz-Johannessen, Rune Andreas Kroken, NORMENT, Division of Psychiatry, Haukeland University Hospital, Bergen 5036, Norway
Petros Drosos, Erik Johnsen, Tor Ketil Larsen, Rune Andreas Kroken, Department of Clinical Medicine, University of Bergen, Bergen 5007, Norway
Solveig Klæbo Reitan, Institute for Mental Health, St Olav's University Hospital, Trondheim 7030, Norway
Solveig Klæbo Reitan, Department of Mental Health, Norwegian University of Natural Science and Technology, Trondheim 7491, Norway
Maria Rettenbacher, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Medical University Innsbruck, Innsbruck 6020, Austria
Author contributions: Johnsen E and Kroken RA designed the project; Bartz-Johannessen CA and Drosos P carried out the statistical analyses; Drosos P prepared the first draft; Johnsen E, Bartz-Johannessen CA, Larsen TK, Reitan SK and Rettenbacher M contributed to the manuscript; all authors have read and approved the final version of the manuscript.
Supported by Drosos P is a Research Fellow with a Grant From the Western Norway Regional Health Trust, No. 912140.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by the Regional Committees for Medical and Health Research Ethics (REK), No. 2010/3387-6.
Clinical trial registration statement: This is a prospective cohort study using data from the randomized, controlled trial study, the Best Intro Study (ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT01446328).
Informed consent statement: All study participants, or their legal guardian, provided written informed consent prior to study enrollment.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
CONSORT 2010 statement: The authors have read the CONSORT 2010 statement, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the CONSORT 2010 statement.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Petros Drosos, MD, Doctor, Research Fellow, TIPS-Network for Clinical Research in Psychosis, Clinic For Adult Mental Health, Stavanger University Hospital, Jan Johnsens Gate 12, Stavanger 4011, Norway. petros.drosos@sus.no
Received: September 22, 2021
Peer-review started: September 22, 2021
First decision: November 8, 2021
Revised: December 14, 2021
Accepted: January 29, 2022
Article in press: January 29, 2022
Published online: March 19, 2022
Core Tip

Core Tip: In this clinical trial of the three atypical antipsychotics amisulpride, aripiprazole, and olanzapine, we identified three trajectory groups of responses at the one-year follow-up. The majority of the study participants (87%) followed a trajectory of a good or strong response to antipsychotic drugs, while 13% showed a poor response. The use of amisulpride predicted belonging to the Strong response group. This antipsychotic should therefore be used more often in clinical practice. Unemployment, depression, and negative psychotic symptoms at baseline predicted nonresponse to antipsychotic drugs.