Should antipsychotic medications for schizophrenia be given for a lifetime? Replication of a naturalistic, long-term, follow-up study of antipsychotic treatment

Because ethically and practically a randomized control trial of antipsychotics will never be done, we recently conducted and reported a 8- to 50-year, naturalistic follow-up from an academic clinic of patients with chronic schizophrenia on antipsychotic medication. We found that better medication adherence was a statistically significant predictor of better long-term global outcome and life satisfaction. Because there were important limitations...