Effectiveness and tolerability of schizophrenia treatment in Central and Eastern Europe: results after 1 year from a prospective, observational study (IC-SOHO).

Objective. The Intercontinental Schizophrenia Outpatient Health Outcomes (IC-SOHO) study is intended to complement smaller, shorter-term observational studies and randomised controlled clinical trials in providing information on the treatment of schizophrenia in various geographies that have not been well studied previously.Methods. Interim results after 12 months are presented for a subset of patients from eight Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries initiating or switching to olanzapine, risperidone, or typical antipsychotic monotherapy at Baseline (n=1387).Results. Patients initially prescribed olanzapine and risperidone experienced significantly greater improvements in a broad range of schizophrenia symptom domains compared with patients prescribed typicals. Furthermore, patients in the olanzapine group showed significantly greater improvements in overall and negative symptom domains compared with the risperidone group (all P≤0.05). While patients in the olanzapine group gained more weight than ...