Objective and method: There are complaints of an undertreatment of schizophrenic patients with atypical antipsychotics in German outpatients. Together with reluctance to start treatment with second generation antipsychotics, change of medication after inpatient treatment is often held responsible for the more frequent use of typical compounds. However, global statistics of prescriptions are difficult to interpret. To get data of the current practice, 132 patients treated with atypical antipsychotics in a university clinic were followed-up one year later.
Results: Of the patients that could be reached and still received medication, 82 (94%) were treated with atypical antipsychotics.
Conclusions: The results indicate that change to conventional antipsychotics in outpatients does not considerably contribute to the low prescription of atypical antipsychotics.