Duration of untreated psychosis and the long-term course of schizophrenia

Abstract

This study examines the relationship between duration of untreated psychosis (DUP) and long-term symptomatic and social outcome in 205 patients with schizophrenia, whose parents are member of a consumer organisation. We found only a tendency that longer DUP was related to negative symptoms, but no relation to other outcome domains. The results of this study do not support antipsychotic intervention at the earliest sign of psychosis in order to 'protect the brain'.

Pattern of health service utilization and predictors of readmission after a first admission for psychosis: a 2‐year follow‐up study

“…Few studies have examined which characteristics of pathway to care before first admission for psychosis predict psychiatric readmission. In the present study, DUP was not associated with readmission status, in accordance with previous studies (19, 41). Only the number of contacts before first admission predicted readmission, irrespective of the type of helpers seen as first or second helping contact(s).…”

Untreated Initial Psychosis: Relation to Cognitive Deficits and Brain Morphology in First-Episode Schizophrenia

“…However, studies that have specifically examined the relationship between duration of untreated initial psychosis and outcome have had more mixed findings (4) and call into question the plausibility of toxicity from untreated psychosis. Although there are presently still more publications in the literature reporting on the association between long duration of untreated initial psychosis and poor outcome (7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16), an increasing number of studies published during the past 3 years have failed to find this association (17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22).…”

“…Some studies have found long duration of untreated initial psychosis to be associated with poorer outcome (7-16), while others have not (17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22). The reasons for these conflicting findings may be related to differences in sampling, power, and statistical methods (4,45) as well as in the reliability and validity of measuring the duration of untreated initial psychosis (46).…”

Duration of untreated psychosis and negative symptoms — A systematic review and meta-analysis of individual patient data

“…A total of 402 papers were identified by the search strategy, from which we identified 28 non-overlapping first episode studies that met inclusion criteria (see Appendix 1) (Montague et al, 1989;Barnes et al, 2000;Craig et al, 2000;de Haan et al, 2000;Drake et al, 2000;Ho et al, 2000;Larsen et al, 2000;Black et al, 2001;Verdoux et al, 2001;Cullberg et al, 2002;Malla et al, 2003;Addington et al, 2004;Sim et al, 2004;Chen et al, 2005;Harris et al, 2005;Manchanda et al, 2005;Melle et al, 2005;Oosthuizen et al, 2005;Petersen et al, 2005;Wade et al, 2005;Clarke et al, 2006;Ucok et al, 2006;Wunderink et al, 2006;Crespo-Facorro et al, 2007;Malla et al, 2007;Vyas et al, 2007;Gorna et al, 2008;Yamazawa et al, 2008). The selected studies included a total of 3998 participants.…”