a study of risperidone long-acting injection versus oral antipsychotics in schizophrenia participants with a history of being poorly compliant with taking their medication

Conditions: Schizophrenia

Summary: the purpose of this study is to evaluate risperidone long-acting injection (an antipsychotic medication) versus oral antipsychotics in schizophrenia (psychiatric disorder with symptoms of emotional instability, detachment from reality, often with delusions and hallucinations, and withdrawal into the self) participants with a history of being poorly compliant with taking their medication.

this is a phase 4, an open-label (all people know the identity of the intervention), multi-country and multi-centric (conducted in more than one center) study of risperidone long-acting formulation versus oral (having to do with the mouth) atypical antipsychotics in participants with a diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, fourth edition text revision ( dsm-iv tr) diagnosis of schizophrenia currently being treated with oral antipsychotic medication. the duration of this study will be 2 years. all the eligible participants will be randomly assigned to an oral atypical antipsychotic (risperidone, olanzapine, quetiapine, and where commercially available, aripiprazole and amisulpride) or to risperidone long-acting formulation. for risperidone long-acting formulation participants, study medication will be administered by intramuscular (into the muscle) injection every 2 weeks at doses of 25, 37.5 or 50 milligram (mg). oral supplementation with the current oral atypical antipsychotic is required for the first 3 weeks following the initial injection and dose increase. dose increase can be made as per product labeling. the primary measure of effectiveness is the reduction in the percentage of participants experiencing a clinical exacerbation after being in the study for 3 months. participants' safety will be monitored throughout the study.

Eligibility criteria:
inclusion criteria: - diagnosis of schizophrenia (psychiatric disorder with symptoms of emotional instability, detachment from reality, often with delusions and hallucinations, and withdrawal into the self) as per diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, fourth edition text revision (dsm-iv tr)- have had at least 2 hospitalizations or 2 clinical worsening of symptoms, over the past 2 years because of deteriorating adherence - is currently receiving treatment with an antipsychotic per local product label guidelines, and has a history in the last 5 years of a satisfactory response (minimum of 6 weeks) to oral antipsychotics (excluding clozapine) - on monotherapy antipsychotic treatment as per local product label guidelines, at baseline -female participants must be surgically sterile, or practicing an effective method of birth control before entry and throughout the study, and have a negative urine pregnancy test at screening before study entry exclusion criteria: - participants with a primary dsm-iv tr axis i diagnosis other than schizophrenia - female participants who are currently pregnant or breastfeeding or planning a pregnancy within 2 years of trial start - have a serious, unstable and untreated medical illnesses, such as vascular or cardiovascular disease, history of liver or kidney disease, significant cardiac (having to do with the heart), pulmonary (having to do with the lungs), gastrointestinal, endocrine, neurological (pertaining to the nervous system) or metabolic disturbances - at significant risk of suicide or violence at study start - evidence of substance dependence (except for nicotine and caffeine dependence) according to dsm-iv tr criteria diagnosed in the last month prior to entry

Keywords: schizophrenia risperidone risperdal consta