Treatment adherence in forensic patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders discharged on long-acting injectable antipsychotics: a comparative 3-year mirror-image study

In this retrospective 3-year mirror-image study, 81 patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSD) were categorized according to whether they were prescribed long-acting injectable antipsychotics (LAI) or not upon discharge from the inpatient forensic psychiatric unit. Antipsychotic adherence, which was staged based on the ‘proportion of days covered’ method, as well as other clinical outcomes was compared between pre- and post-index mirror periods. In both Oral-only (n = 46) and Oral + LAI (n = 35) groups, the number of hospitalizations, convictions and months spent in the hospital were significantly lower in the post-index period than the pre-index period. Differences in these three variables between pre- and post-index periods were NS between the two groups. A mixed effect ordinal logistic regression model with random intercept showed that the odds ratio of obtaining a higher treatment adherence score in the post-index period was more pronounced in the Oral + LAI group than in the Oral-only group, considering adherence at baseline and the length of stay during the index hospitalization as potential confounders. Discharge with LAIs in a forensic psychiatric cohort of SSD was associated with a greater mid- to long-term improvement in antipsychotic medication adherence compared to discharge with oral-only antipsychotics.