When a treatment is predominantly
prescribed for a subpopulation
with specific characteristics
(e.g., increased relapses, decreased
adherence or response to treatment,
increased comorbidities), it can be
challenging to correctly estimate
the treatment effect because of the
confounding impact of these population
characteristics. Inverse probability
weighting is a relatively novel
approach that can be used to evaluate
treatment effects when the treatments
are not randomly assigned.28,29
The study described here applied
inverse probability-of-treatment
weights to compare rates of rehospitalization
and ER visits for patients
with schizophrenia receiving paliperidone
palmitate, an LAT, with those
of patients receiving oral antipsychotics
in an inpatient setting. The
study also evaluated all-cause and
schizophrenia-related institutional
costs for the study population.