Conditions: Schizophrenia
Allocation: RANDOMIZED | Intervention model: PARALLEL
Enrollment: 295
Healthy volunteers: no

Brief summary:
To assess the effectiveness of aripiprazole once-monthly in the maintenance treatment of patients with a diagnosis of schizophrenia as defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edition, Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR®), in a naturalistic care setting by comparing it to an existing long-acting antipsychotic, paliperidone palmitate.

Detailed description:

Arms:
arm 1: None arm 2: None

Interventions: intervention 1: Aripiprazole and aripiprazole once-monthly intervention 2: Paliperidone and paliperidone palmitate
Intervention descriptions: intervention 1: Oral aripiprazole tablets according to Summary of Product Characteristics (SmPC)/United States Prescription Information (USPI) daily for 4 weeks followed by the 1st aripiprazole intramuscular (IM) injection at the end of Week 4. Oral tablets were taken for 2 more weeks after the 1st injection. Starting at the end of Week 8, additional injections were given every 4 weeks until Week 24. intervention 2: Oral paliperidone tablets according to SmPC/USPI daily for 3 weeks followed by 2 paliperidone palmitate IM injections at Weeks 3 and 4, respectively. Starting at the end of Week 8, additional injections were given every 4 weeks until Week 24.

Protocol document: