Quality of life in patients with schizophrenia has been associated with severity of psychotic symptoms, adverse events and insight.

Determine variables related to quality of life. This communication is focused on variables directly related to pharmacological treatment.

Non-interventional, multicentre, cross-sectional study. Outpatients with stable schizophrenia (according to clinical criteria) who had the last acute episode at least 2 months before were included. EuroQol-5D was used to assess quality of life, and GAF to assess functioning.

941 patients were included in the study and 931 patients were analyzed. Mean index EuroQol-5D score (range: from -0.594 to1) was 0.7 (CI95%: 0.7,0.8), on EuroQol-5D Visual Analog Scale (VAS) was 65.4 (CI95%: 64.2,66.6) and GAF mean score was 59.7 (CI95%: 58.7,60.8).

Variables with correlations statistically significant (p < 0.05) on quality of life and functioning were: no. of antipsychotics, length on antipsychotic treatment, no. of non-antipsychotic drugs, no. total of drugs, no. of adverse events (AEs), no. of moderate AEs, no. of severe AEs and severity of AEs (sum of severity of every AEs from 1 to 5).

In this sample a difference in quality of life and functioning in patients based on the number of treatments (antipsychotic and non-antipsychotic), length with antipsychotic treatment and adverse events (any severity) was shown. In order not to impair quality of life and functioning, the least number of drugs should be used and attitude towards medication should be worked.

Study sponsored by AstraZeneca Spain.