Pharmacotherapy for personality disorders is in the early stage of development because the evidence base for effective drug treatment is insufficient, biased toward borderline personality disorder and rampant with methodological issues. In this paper, we reviewed randomized, placebo-controlled trials of drugs efficacy in patients with personality disorders published between 1990 and 2016.Overwhelming majority of studies focused on borderline personality disorder (BPD), and the accumulation of evidence resulted in 7 meta-analyses, which are interpreted into better strategies for evidence-based practice. Little research attention was given to schizotypal (SPTD) and antisocial (ASPD) personality disorders, with only indirect treatment efficacy evidence for the obsessivecompulsive (OCPD) and avoidant (AvPD) personality disorders. Some avenues for future efficacy research are indicated.
The aims of the study were: 1) the evaluation of the agreement between therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) and a self-assessment of adherence to psychopharmacological treatments; 2) the identification of predictors of TDM results. Adherence admitted into a psychiatric emergency service (PES) for a relapse of a schizophrenia spectrum disorder (SSD) or a bipolar disorder (BD; DSM-5) was assessed both directly with TDM and indirectly with a self-reported measure (Medication Adherence Report Scale -MARS-10 items). The agreement between TDM and MARS was evaluated. Fifty-seven patients with SSD and 76 people with BD participated in the study. TDM was in range in about 50% of the global sample. No evidence of an association between MARS total scores and TDM results was found. Sensibility, specificity, positive and negative predictive values of almost all MARS total scores were near to 50%. Smoking was strongly associated with a reduction of TDM results within the reference range. In the BD group, female sex was a predictor of TDM in range. In this clinical setting, self-assessment of adherence is neither reliable nor predictive. Furthermore, smoking is a strong predictor of poor adherence to psychopharmacological therapy.
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