Abstract
The development of the depot fluphenazine preparations has been a major advance in the drug treatment of schizophrenia, ensuring continuous medication and stimulating the development of adequate community care services, resulting in significant reduction of relapse and readmission.
This report compares the incidence of readmissions and the duration of hospital stay in a group of chronic schizophrenic patients who had first received oral medication and then long-acting injectable fluphenazine enanthate and decanoate over identical periods of time. A percentage of 93.3 of the subjects were maintained on continuous treatment for twelve to forty months. The readmission rate was reduced from 191 to 50, and the time spent in hospital from 8,713 to 1,335 days.