Reasons to choose a long acting antipsychotic and tolerability

Introduction Aripiprazole depot is an atypical antipshycotic used to treat positive and negative symptoms of psychosis or acute mania. Aim Describe the reason why psychiatrists switch the current antipsychotic treatment on to aripiprazol depot, its tolerability and the reasons to stop aripiprazol depot treatment. Methods Descriptive analysis based on a sample of 37 patients, aged 18–65 years, treated during one year with antipsychotics at two community mental health units. Results Switching on to aripiprazole depot principal reasons: promote adherence (25%), persistence of symptoms (25%) and high levels of prolactin or sexual dysfunction (16.66%): – side effects of aripiprazole depot: insomnia (11.11%), inquietude (8.33%), sexual dysfunction (2.77%) and hypertensive crisis during administration (2.77%); – 83.33% of the patients are still taking it after one year. The most common reasons to stop or change it were the presence of secondaries (11.11%) and clinical exacerbation (5.55%). Conclusions Aripiprazole depot is well tolerated (even better than other antipsychotics). Common side effects are not severe and appear in a small percent of patients.