Poor adherence to treatment is one of the main problems in health care to psychiatric patients. The second-generation antipsychotics, and the subsequent emergence of the depot forms (long acting formulations) have facilitated this aspect, increasing the time to clinical relapse in patients with schizophrenia.

Determine the time to relapse in a clinical sample of patients diagnosed with schizophrenia treated with paliperidone palmitate over 3 years. Other objectives include the possible reduction in hospital admissions, as well as the possible reduction of psychiatric emergency visits, concomitant medication (benzodiazepines and Biperiden) and the possible increase in drug monotherapy.

This is a study with a sample of 101 patients with schizophrenia who had started treatment with PP (consecutive sampling). Quantified variables in the 12 months prior to the change of PP treatment with variables at 6, 12, 24 and 36 months after initiation of treatment with PP were compared.

At the end of the tracking, 72.22% (73 patients) remained clinically stable, with adequate adherence to treatment and there have been no clinical relapses. It has obtained a statistically significant reduction in the use of concomitant medication, emergency room visits and the average duration of revenues, with no clinical relapse should occur in patients of the sample in the second and third year.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.