EFFICACY OF OLANZAPINE AND HALOPERIDOL IN TREATMENT OF SCHIZOPHRENIA IN TERTIARY CARE HOSPITAL

INTRODUCTION: Schizophrenia is a chronic debilitating disease with significant morbidity and mortality that often requires either typical or atypical antipsychotic pharmacotherapy. Atypical antipsychotic drugs are preferred over typical because of lower risk of extra pyramidal side effects (EPS). As there is paucity of data in Indian population, the present study was taken up. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the efficacy of haloperidol (Typical) and olanzepine (Atypical) antipsychotic drugs in schizophrenic patients. METHODS: It was a comparative study conducted on 60 patients of Schizophrenia for one year at Department of Psychiatry, Victoria Hospital, Bangalore. The study subjects were randomly assigned into 2 groups of 30 patients each, where group 1 were treated with atypical antipsychotic drug olanzapine and group 2 with typical antipsychotic drug Haloperidol and both groups received the treatment for one year. Efficacy was measured using Positive and negative syndrome scale (PANSS), Clinical Global Impression - Severity of illness (CGI-S), Clinical Global Impression - Improvement (CGI-I) scales. RESULTS: Both typical and atypical antipsychotics were associated with comparable baseline to endpoint reduction in symptom severity. However atypical antipsychotic drug olanzapine treated subjects had significantly greater decrease in symptom severity as measured by PANSS negative score and total score, CGI-S scale and CGI-I scale.