It is important to diagnose and treat schizophrenia as early as possible to help people avoid or reduce frequent relapses and re-hospitalizations. People who experience acute symptoms of schizophrenia may require intensive treatment, sometimes including hospitalization. Hospitalization is necessary to treat severe delusions or hallucinations, serious suicidal inclinations, inability to care for oneself, or severe problems with drugs or alcohol. It is critical that people with schizophrenia stay in treatment even after recovering from an acute episode. About 80 percent of those who stop taking their medications after an acute episode will have a relapse within one year, whereas only 30 percent of those who continue their medications will experience a relapse in the same time period.
Medication appears to improve the long-term prognosis for many people with schizophrenia.
Fifteen percent have not improved, and 10 percent are dead. Individuals with schizophrenia die at a younger age than do healthy people. Males have a 5.1 greater than expected early mortality rate than the general population, and females have a 5.6 greater risk of early death. Suicide is the single largest contributor to this excess mortality rate, which is 10 to 13 percent higher in schizophrenia than the general population. Suicide is in fact the number one cause of premature death among people with schizophrenia, with an estimated 10 percent to 13 percent killing themselves.