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Well-being in clozapine-treated schizophrenia patients: The significance of positive symptoms.

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

Repository DOI


Type

Article

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Authors

Brown, Julia EH 
Mezquida, Gisela 
Fernandez-Egea, Emilio 

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: Well-being perception is seldom explored in schizophrenia patients. Recurrent limitations, such as the questionable applicability of gold standard definitions of health and well-being, and fewer tools available to assess well-being, are pronounced in this subpopulation. This cross-sectional study sought to explore potential clinical factors that may predict subjective well-being scores in chronic schizophrenia patients (N=142) receiving clozapine treatment. METHODS: The Short Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (SWEMWBS) was used to measure well-being. We correlated SWEMWBS scores and 27 clinically recognized factors, spanning socio-demographics, symptom severity scores, physical health diagnosis, clozapine side effects, habits and prescribed medication. Factors with a p<0.2 correlation were included as a predictors in a linear regression model. RESULTS: Ten factors were included in the linear regression model, however only positive symptom severity was a significant predictor of SWEMWBS score (p<0.0001). CONCLUSIONS: We suggest that greater levels of clinical attention given to positive symptoms compared with other symptoms and aspects of well-being, during biomedical treatment for chronic schizophrenia, may partially explain the finding that only positive symptoms significantly predicted patient perceptions of low well-being.

Description

Keywords

Adult, Antipsychotic Agents, Clozapine, Cross-Sectional Studies, Female, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Neuropsychological Tests, Schizophrenia, Treatment Outcome

Journal Title

Compr Psychiatry

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0010-440X
1532-8384

Volume Title

Publisher

Elsevier BV
Sponsorship
While not directly funding this study, the authors of this work are supported by the Australian Postgraduate Award (J.B., APA 1183a/2010) and Government of Catalonia with the Secretaria d‟Universitats i Recerca del Departament d‟Economia i Coneixement (G.M., 2014SGR441), the grant FIDGR-2013 Contract of the Agència de Gestió d‟Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca (G.M., AGAUR, 2015 FI_B2 00100) and a 2009 Young Investigator Award (NARSAD) (E.F-E., RG53588). This study used data extracted from the Clinical and Research Database for Persistent Schizophrenia, partially funded by the UK-National Institute for Health Research - Biomedical Research Center Cambridge. We also thank service users and Clozapine Clinic staff for their participation and support.