# Importance of the type of pharmacological treatment in patients with severe mental disorder

## TL;DR

This study examines how different long-acting psychiatric treatments affect patient satisfaction and hospital admissions in patients with severe mental disorders.

## Contribution

The study evaluates the impact of treatment duration on satisfaction and emergency admissions in patients with severe mental disorders.

## Key findings

- Longer-acting intramuscular treatments correlate with higher patient satisfaction.
- Patients on 6-monthly palmitate paliperidone had the lowest psychiatric emergencies and admissions.
- Shorter-acting treatments like zuclopenthixol were associated with higher emergency and admission rates.

## Abstract

The use of long-acting treatments is a common clinical practice in psychiatry. No disease insight and the risk of treatment discontinuation in a significant portion of our patients, increase the demand for psychiatric emergency and hospital admissions. Treatment adherence must be facilitated, taking into account possible side effects and patient´s subjective satisfaction.

-Evaluate the type of long-acting intramuscular treatment in selected patients. -Evaluate the differences in treatment satisfaction between different types of long-acting intramuscular treatments as well as frequency of psychiatric emergency and hospital admissions in the last year.

We select patients with different severe mental disorders who stay in a Medium Stay Unit, Sociosanitary Community Residence, Supervise house and Residence for the elderly in Albacete (Spain); all of them, with intramuscular neuroleptic treatment (zuclopenthixol dihydrochloride, aripiprazole long acting, palmitate paliperidone monthly, 3-monthly and 6-monthly) at least 1 year.

We evaluate their sociodemographic characteristics, the satisfaction questionnaire with the treatment (TSQM-9) and the rate of psychiatric emergencies and admissions after current intramuscular treatment in last year.

We have selected 57 patients with an average age of 45.86. 78.94% with a diagnosis of schizophrenia, 12.28% with schizoaffective disorder, 5.26% bipolar disorder and 3.5% unspecified psychotic disorder.

We can see in the graphics below that the longer duration of the intramuscular treatment, the greater satisfaction in all the items of the TSQM-9 questionnaire.

31% of the patients with zuclopenthixol dihydrochloride treatment, have gone to psychiatric emergencies and 28% of psychiatric admissions in the last year.18% of the patients with aripiprazole long acting, 17% with paliperidone palmitate long acting-monthly and 12% de 3-monthly have gone to psychiatric emergencies and 15%, 12% and 12% needed psychiatric admissions respectively. Patients with palmitate long acting-monthly have not emergencies or psychiatric admissions in the last year.

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The longer long acting of the intramuscular treatments, the better patient satisfaction.
With the longer duration treatment (Palmitate paliperidone LD 6 month), we have lower psychiatric emergencies and hospital admissions.

The longer long acting of the intramuscular treatments, the better patient satisfaction.

With the longer duration treatment (Palmitate paliperidone LD 6 month), we have lower psychiatric emergencies and hospital admissions.

None Declared