The clinical distinction between schizophrenia and affective psychoses is often not clear-cut, and very little is known about the effectiveness of treatments among patients having both schizophrenia and affective symptoms.

To study the comparative real-world effectiveness of antipsychotic treatments among patients having schizophrenia and affective symptoms.

We studied the risk of all-cause rehospitalization during use of specific antipsychotics during 1996–2012 among all patients who had been previously hospitalized with both schizophrenia and mood disorder diagnoses in Finland since 1987 (n = 28,015). We linked nation-wide databases on hospitalization, mortality, and filled prescriptions. The primary analysis was within-individual analysis, in which each individual was used as his/her own control to eliminate selection bias. The effect of concomitant psychotropic medications, and the temporal orders of exposure and non-exposure periods were adjusted.

When 22 specific antipsychotic treatments were compared with the most frequently used antipsychotic quetiapine, the lowest rehospitalization risks were observed during the treatment periods of olanzapine long-acting injection (LAI) (HR: 0.52; 95% CI: 0.34–0.80), risperidone LAI (0.67; 0.56–0.81), and clozapine (0.68; 0.63–0.74). The worst outcome was observed for periciazine (1.19; 0.96–1.48) and no antipsychotic use (1.09; 1.04–1.13).

Olanzapine LAI, risperidone LAI, and clozapine use are associated with the lowest risk of rehospitalization among patients with schizophrenia and affective symptoms.

Jari Tiihonen has served as a consultant to The Finnish Medicines Agency Fimea, AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, F. Hoffman-La Roche, Janssen-Cilag, Lundbeck, Organon, and Finnish Medicines Agency he has received fees for giving expert testimony to AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline, Janssen-Cilag, Lundbeck, Otsuka and Pfizer lecture fees from AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline, Janssen-Cilag, Lundbeck, Novartis, Otsuka, Pfizer and grants from Stanley Foundation and Sigrid Jusélius Foundation. Tiihonen is a member of advisory boards for AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly, Janssen-Cilag, and Otsuka, and has research collaboration with Lilly and Janssen. Markku Lähteenvuo is a major shareholder and board member at Genomi Solutions ltd, a Finnish based bioinformatics company. He has also received research grants or awards from Boehringer-Ingelheim, and is working as a coordinator for a research project funded by the Stanley Foundation. Fabian Hoti and Pia Vattulainen are employed by EPID Research, which is a contract research organization that performs commissioned pharmacoepidemiological studies and thus its employees have been and currently are working in collaboration with several pharmaceutical companies. Antti Tanskanen and Heidi Taipale have participated in research projects funded by Janssen with grants paid to the Karolinska Institutet.