Schizophrenia drugs studies - "one size does not fit all," says NAMI

Ken Duckworth, medical director of the USA's National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), says that "the latest findings in the NIMH's Clinical Antipsychotic Trials of Intervention Effectiveness (CATIE) provide important guideposts" for the treatment of schizophrenia. These studies, funded by the US National Institute of Mental Health, were published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, March issue.

First, he said, choices exist among medications. One size does not fit all. Second, medication alone is not enough to overcome the illness. Medications reduce symptoms, but no difference exists between drugs in moving beyond modest improvement toward restoration of interpersonal and community living skills.

Like earlier CATIE findings, the results show that older generation antipsychotic medicines remain as effective as newer ones. More significantly, when an older drug becomes ineffective, some newer medications help sooner than others, Dr Duckworth noted.