Pharmacological treatment of violence in schizophrenia

Chronic aggression and violence in schizophrenia are rare, but receive disproportionate negative media coverage. This contributes to the stigma of mental illness and reduces accessibility to mental health services. Substance Use Disorders (SUD), antisocial behavior, non-adherence and recidivism are known risk factors for violence. Treatment with antipsychotic medication can reduce violence. Aside from clozapine, long-acting injectable antipsychotics (LAI) appear to be superior to oral antipsychotics for preventing violence, addressing adherence and recidivism. LAI also facilitate the implementation of functional skills training. For the high-risk recidivist target population with schizophrenia, better life skills have the potential to also reduce the risk for contact with the legal system, including an improved ability to live independently in supported environments and interact appropriately with others. High-risk patients who are resistant to treatment with other antipsychotics should receive treatment with clozapine due to its direct positive effects on impulsive violence, along with a reduction in comorbid risk factors such as SUDs

New Discoveries for an Old Drug: A Review of Recent Olanzapine Research

Objective: Based on a substantial literature, olanzapine appears to be one of the most efficacious antipsychotics marketed in the United States, with only clozapine clearly more advantageous. However, olanzapine is marred by an equally substantial literature demonstrating a metabolic burden of olanzapine, particularly for weight gain. With the publication of successful strategies to limit olanzapine induced weight gain, a reassessment of the clinical utility of olanzapine appears warranted. The purpose of this paper is to review recent evidence for olanzapine, highlighting use in both schizophrenia and other conditions, safety and supporting the use of olanzapine above 20 mg/day, focusing on studies published since our previous reviews in 2008 and 2009.Data Sources: The US National Library of Medicine\u27s PubMed resource (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/) was searched using the text word \u27olanzapine\u27 for all English-language articles published between 2008 to July 2019, inclusive with a specific focus on double-blind randomized controlled trials and meta-analyses. In addition, we examined the review articles for other reports of interest that may have been missed by our initial search.Data Extraction: The studies were evaluated based on efficacy and safety data.Results: Use of olanzapine may be decreasing but remains common overall. Evidence continues to support both the relative efficacy advantage and weight gain/metabolic disadvantages of olanzapine in schizophrenia, and recent research supports olanzapine\u27s use in treating anorexia nervosa and chemotherapy-induced nausea. The evidence for high dose olanzapine dosages \u3e20 mg remains limited. Non-pharmacological options, such as dietary counseling and exercise, appear to be efficacious in addressing antipsychotic-induced weight gain. Topiramate, metformin and possibly the olanzapine-samidorphan combination also appear helpful.Conclusions: Olanzapine remains a useful antipsychotic, but requires with careful monitoring. Further research is needed to compare the different options available to mitigate olanzapine-induced weight gain and to evaluate potential synergism between pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatments

New Discoveries for and Old Drug: a Review of Recent Olanzapine Research

OBJECTIVE: Based on a substantial literature, olanzapine appears to be one of the most efficacious antipsychotics marketed in the United States, with only clozapine clearly more advantageous. However, olanzapine is marred by an equally substantial literature demonstrating a metabolic burden of olanzapine, particularly for weight gain. With the publication of successful strategies to limit olanzapine induced weight gain, a reassessment of the clinical utility of olanzapine appears warranted. The purpose of this paper is to review recent evidence for olanzapine, highlighting use in both schizophrenia and other conditions, safety and supporting the use of olanzapine above 20 mg/day, focusing on studies published since our previous reviews in 2008 and 2009. DATA SOURCES: The US National Library of Medicine\u27s PubMed resource (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/) was searched using the text word olanzapine for all English-language articles published between 2008 to July 2019, inclusive with a specific focus on double-blind randomized controlled trials and meta-analyses. In addition, we examined the review articles for other reports of interest that may have been missed by our initial search. DATA EXTRACTION: The studies were evaluated based on efficacy and safety data. RESULTS: Use of olanzapine may be decreasing but remains common overall. Evidence continues to support both the relative efficacy advantage and weight gain/metabolic disadvantages of olanzapine in schizophrenia, and recent research supports olanzapine\u27s use in treating anorexia nervosa and chemotherapy-induced nausea. The evidence for high dose olanzapine dosages \u3e20 mg remains limited. Non-pharmacological options, such as dietary counseling and exercise, appear to be efficacious in addressing antipsychotic-induced weight gain. Topiramate, metformin and possibly the olanzapine-samidorphan combination also appear helpful. CONCLUSIONS: Olanzapine remains a useful antipsychotic albeit with careful monitoring. Further research is needed to compare the different options available to mitigate olanzapine-induced weight gain and to evaluate potential synergism between pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatments

Autism symptoms, depression, and active social avoidance in schizophrenia : Association with self-reports and informant assessments of everyday functioning

Autistic traits are a feature of schizophrenia and has been found to impair social functioning and social cognition. Other influences on social outcomes in schizophrenia include depression and social avoidance. However, challenges in self-assessment of abilities and functioning (i.e., introspective accuracy) and self-assessment bias also contribute to disability. Depression has been studied for its association with introspective accuracy and bias, but autistic traits have not. Participants were 177 patients with schizophrenia who self-reported their everyday functioning and social cognitive ability as well as their depression. All were rated with the PANSS and a separate rater generated all-sources ratings of everyday functioning and social cognitive ability. Correlations between self-reported everyday functioning and social cognitive ability, ratings of everyday functioning and social cognitive ability, and the discrepancies between those ratings were examined for correlations with depression, autistic features and social avoidance. Accuracy was defined by the absolute value of the difference between self-reports and all-sources ratings and bias was defined by the direction of discrepancy (positive vs. negative). There was a statistically significant difference between sources on every measure. Bias was not directional on average, but patients with the lowest levels of depression overestimated their abilities on every measure and those with the highest depression underestimated. Autistic traits were associated with impairments in everyday functioning and underestimation of those impairments, while social avoidance was associated with impaired social functioning and accurate self-assessment. Features of schizophrenia have differential implications for impaired functioning and self-assessment, with autistic features and low levels of depression associated with consistent self-assessment biases

Depression and reduced emotional experience in schizophrenia : Correlations with self-reported and informant-rated everyday social functioning

Negative symptoms and depression persist in one third of patients with schizophrenia. Previous studies suggested that depression has more impact on self-perceived compared to observer-rated social functions. Reduced emotional experience, a subdomain of negative symptoms, predicts social functioning deficits, although its role in self-assessment is unclear. We examined depression and reduced emotional experience and self-reports and informant ratings of social functioning and social cognitive abilities in 135 patients with schizophrenia. Discrepancies between sources were used to index the accuracy and bias in self-assessment. Less severe depression was associated with self-reports of reduced impairments in social functioning and better social cognitive abilities. Reduced emotional experience was related to informant ratings and self-reports of social functioning. Neither reduced emotional experience nor depression was correlated with discrepancies between sources, despite the bias of patients with lower depression to report that they were higher functioning and more competent. These findings suggest that patients with schizophrenia make global judgments about functioning based on current mood states. There was minimal association between the depression severity and the accuracy of self-assessment, despite positive biases associated with lower depression severity. The determinants of accuracy and bias in self-assessment requires more detailed examination and subdivision of patients based on their depression

Confidence, performance, and accuracy of self-assessment of social cognition : A comparison of schizophrenia patients and healthy controls

Impairments in self-assessment in schizophrenia have been shown to have functional and clinical implications. Prior studies have suggested that overconfidence can be associated with poorer cognitive performance in people with schizophrenia, and that reduced awareness of performance may be associated with disability. However, overconfidence is common in healthy individuals as well. This study examines the correlations between performance on a social cognitive test, confidence in performance, effort allocated to the task, and correlates of confidence in patients with schizophrenia and healthy controls (HC). Measures included self-reports of depression, social cognitive ability, and social functioning. A performance-based emotion recognition test assessed social cognitive performance and provided the basis for confidence judgments. Although schizophrenia patients had reduced levels of overall confidence, there was a substantial subset of schizophrenic patients who manifested extreme overconfidence and these people had the poorest performance and reported the least depression. Further, a substantial number of HC over-estimated their performance as well. Patients with schizophrenia, in contrast to HC, did not adjust their effort to match task difficulty. Confidence was minimally related to task performance in patients but was associated with more rapid decisions in HC, across both correct and incorrect responses. Performance on social cognitive measures was minimally related to self-reports of social functioning in both samples. These data suggest global self-assessments are based on multiple factors, with confidence affecting self-assessments in the absence of feedback about performance