Depressive symptoms and schizophrenic relapses: The effect of four neuroleptic drugs

1. A prevalence of depressive symptomatology, ranging from 25% to 80% has b een reported during the course of schizophrenia. 2. Depressive symptoms were assessed in 144 schizophrenic patients (DSM IV) during an acute exacerbation phase. 3. Depressive symptoms showed a prevalence ranging from 5.5% (severe clinic al pictures) to 54.8 % (mild clinical pictures). 4. The authors did not find a correlation between depressive symptoms per s e and the presence of negative psychotic symptoms. Depression may be linked not so much to negative symptoms but to the psychotic state itself. 5. Depressive symptomatology concurrently occured with schizophrenic relaps es and improved together with the psychotic clinical picture, independently of the neuroleptic drug employed. Haloperidol, haloperidol decanoate and f luphenazine decanoate all showed a similar improvement of depressive sympto ms. 6. L-sulpiride showed a trend to be most effective on depressive symptomato logy in comparison to the other neuroleptics.