Effect of Antipsychotics on the Quality of Life of Schizophrenic Patients in Community Mental Health Centers：

The purpose of this study was to examine an association between the type of antipsychotic drugs administered and the quality of life of schizophrenic patients attending rehabilitation programs in the community setting. The sociodemographic and clinical information for individual patients attending rehabilitation programs in 16 mental health centers was gathered from questionnaires self-reported by patients and filled by mental health center workers who interviewed the patients. The schizophrenic patients included in this study were categorized into two groups, depending on whether a drug prescribed was a conventional or atypical antipsychotic drug. The patients were selected by 1: 1 matching for sex and age from two groups in order to explore the association of antipsychotics and quality of life (QoL) assessing with Quality of Life Scale (QLS). Confounding effects by some other sociodemographic factors, which might directly influence the selection of antipsychotics and QoL, were excluded by 1: 1 matching for variables. Out of 301 schizophrenic patients, 226 individuals in 113 pairs comprising one person in each group were analyzed to identify the differences between two groups. The QoL of the patients treated with atypical antipsychotics was found to be higher than that of those treated with conventional antipsychotics, even after the results were adjusted for sex, age, and sociodemographic variables such as medical insurance, education, family income per capita and psychiatric institution. These results provide meaningful evidence that atypical antipsychotics improve QoL as compared to conventional antipsychotics among schizophrenic patients who are attending rehabilitation programs in mental health centers.