Which Patients With Schizophrenia Can Profitably Stay Off Antipsychotic Medications? Fenton and McGlashan (1987) note that it would be desirable to determine which patients with schizophrenia can profitably stay off antipsychotic medications. While identify- ing an important subgroup, they note that these factors could not be used to accurately predict which specific schizophrenia patients among those with favorable features would function well without medications. The premorbid factors they found seem to be effective predictors for many rather than all such schizophrenia patients. The difficulty of prediction can be seen when Vaillant (1978) and Stephens (1978) also noted that some, but not all, patients with favorable prognostic features function adequately (Jobe and Harrow, 2005). Our data produced results that are similar in principle. Recommendations regarding the use of medications at vari- ous phases of illness are often based on a risk-benefit analysis involving, as in many other areas of modern medicine, the probability of success rather than certainty. The current data identify a clear subgroup of schizophrenia patients not being treated, a number of whom experienced periods of recovery, with the data indicating that on average, those patients not on any medications at the 15-year follow-ups had significantly better current and previous global adjustment than those on
Harrow and Jobe The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease • Volume 195, Number 5, May 2007
© 2007 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins412
antipsychotics (Fig. 2). There also has been some indication that as our patient sample is getting older, there may be some tendency for improvement among schizophrenia patients. Our overall analysis indicates that many schizophrenia pa- tients not on antipsychotic medications played some role themselves in the decision for them to stop taking medication and leave treatment at a relatively early phase of their posthospital course. Thus, most of the subgroup of schizo- phrenia patients not on any medications who were in a period of recovery at the 15-year follow-ups had been taken off or removed themselves from antipsychotic medications over 10 years earlier by the 2-year or 4.5-year follow-ups. After the acute phase, many schizophrenia patients are less symptomatic and function better, partly as a result of antipsychotics. We, as professionals, are closest to our treat- ments and are influenced by the positive effects on many patients of these treatments. However, other factors also influence our patients’ subsequent symptom levels and out- comes. These include the extent or strength of their diathesis or constitutional predispositions toward schizophrenia, inter- nal resources and cognitive skills, attitudes and personalities, and the not-totally-predictable external environmental events they will encounter in the future. Some tend to overlook the potential importance of these latter factors in