Real-Life Dosing With Second-Generation Antipsychotics

Because this piece has no abstract, we have provided for your benefit the first 3 sentences of the full text.

This is the first of 2 articles addressingmethodological issues regarding real-lifedosing and switching strategies whentreating patients with second-generationantipsychotics.

When faced with nonresponse to an adequateduration of antipsychotic treatmentat maximum recommended doses, clinicianshave 4 basic options to improvesymptomatic and/or functional response:(1) wait for the occurrence of a potentiallydelayed response; (2) augment with anothermedication (of the same or a differentclass); (3) switch to another medication(of the same or a different class); or(4) increase the dose beyond the upperdose range used in U.S. Food and DrugAdministration (FDA) approval trials. Ifsufficient data were available, a fifth optioncould be to check for the presence oftherapeutic antipsychotic drug levels.’ ‹