Effectiveness of clozapine on quality of life and functioning in patients with treatment-resistant schizophrenia

Background Although it is well known that treatment with clozapine is associated with improvement in core symptoms of schizophrenia, little information is available about its impact on other outcome variables. Accordingly, this study aimed to evaluate the short term (3 months) effectiveness of clozapine in patients with treatment-resistant schizophrenia (TRS) in terms of quality of life, disability, and level of functioning. Methods This naturalistic follow-up study evaluated 52 participants at the baseline and three months (+/- 1 week) after initiation of clozapine (prospective assessment) on Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale for schizophrenia, Calgary Depression Scale for Schizophrenia, Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale Checklist and Scale, Clinical Global Impression (CGI) scale, Beck Cognitive Insight Scale (BCIS), Scale to Assess Unawareness of Mental Disorders (SUMD), Social Occupational Functioning Scale - SOFS, Functioning Assessment Short Test (FAST), Indian Disability Evaluation and Assessment Scale (IDEAS), World Health Organisation Quality Of Life-BREF (WHOQOL-BREF) and Self-report Quality of Life Measure for people with schizophrenia. Results Treatment with clozapine led to significant improvement in the quality of life, functioning, and disability; reduction in psychopathology (positive, negative, general psychology, depression), the severity of illness, compulsive behavior, and improvement in insight including cognitive insight. Conclusions Treatment with clozapine leads to improvement in core symptoms of schizophrenia and is also associated with significant improvement in the quality of life, functioning, and disability.