Compliance and the rehabilitation alliance

Expectations for the treatment of schizophrenia have historically been mode st, with emphasis on eliminating positive symptoms and keeping patients out of the hospital. Noncompliance with traditional antipsychotic agents, whic h, have limited efficacy anal are associated with numerous adverse side eff ects, has contributed to these low expectations. The atypical antipsychotic s can improve compliance because of their better safety, efficacy, and tole rability and thus help raise treatment expectations from mere removal of sy mptoms to fuller rehabilitation. This rehabilitation can even include the r eintegration of patients with schizophrenia into the community. Compliance with any drug regimen, however, does not in itself guarantee the return to a normal life for patients with schizophrenia. Instead, compliance must occ ur within a rehabilitation alliance-a supportive network that includes the patient, the treating physician, family members and friends, and other care givers.