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While some guidelines exist for the treatment of schizophrenia, they are often country-specific. The new International Guidelines for Algorithmic Treatment (INTEGRATE), published in the Lancet, provide a structured sequence of actions and criteria designed to guide clinicians through the diagnostic, treatment, and management processes for schizophrenia.
Lead author Associate Professor Rob McCutcheon said the aim is for clinicians to adopt the guidelines in practice, with ambitions that they also inform national guidelines.
Schizophrenia affects approximately 0.7% of the global population during their lifetime, and is a significant health-care burden worldwide. Although effective treatments exist, pharmacological treatments often have substantial side-effects, like weight gain, diabetes, and movement problems, and delays in providing the best treatment are common.
Experts from 30 countries came together from all regions of the United Nations to develop the guidelines, and included co-authors Professor Belinda Lennox, Dr Ioana Varvari and Dr Thomas Kabir from the Department of Psychiatry and senior author Professor Dan Siskind at the University of Queensland. They conducted an umbrella review of the literature, expert workshops, a consensus survey, and lived experience focus groups to develop the guidelines, which are designed to be used anywhere in the world.
Key recommendations include a focus on metabolic health from the beginning of treatment, mitigation of side-effects, and the prompt use of clozapine in cases of treatment resistance.
Alongside the guidelines, researchers also developed a digital tool where users can input their symptoms, medications, and side-effects, and the software presents them with the relevant guidelines.
Read the full story on the Department of Psychiatry website.