Conditions: Schizophrenia
Keywords: Schizophrenia Risperidone Risperdal Consta
Allocation: RANDOMIZED | Intervention model: PARALLEL
Enrollment: 167
Healthy volunteers: no

Brief 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.

Detailed description:
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.

Arms:
arm 1: Risperidone LAI 25 milligram (mg), 37.5 mg or 50 mg intramuscular (injection of a substance into a muscle) injection will be administered every 2 weeks as per Investigator's discretion. An oral atypical antipsychotic will also be administered in the first 3 weeks following the dose increase. Duration of treatment will be 24 months. arm 2: Oral atypical antipsychotic will be administered as per local label practice for 24 months. Participants will be switched to another atypical oral therapy as per Investigator's discretion.

Interventions: intervention 1: Risperidone long-acting injection (LAI) intervention 2: Oral atypical Antipsychotic
Intervention descriptions: intervention 1: Risperidone LAI 25 milligram (mg), 37.5 mg or 50 mg intramuscular (injection of a substance into a muscle) injection will be administered every 2 weeks as per Investigator's discretion. An oral atypical antipsychotic will also be administered in the first 3 weeks following the dose increase. Duration of treatment will be 24 months. intervention 2: Oral atypical antipsychotic will be administered as per local label practice for 24 months. Participants will be switched to another atypical oral therapy as per Investigator's discretion.

Protocol document: