A study of clinical response to different kinds of neuroleptics in first time medicated schizophrenics.

Clinical responses to different kinds of neuroleptics in fresh schizophrenics were prospectively investigated. The scales used were the Global Assessment Scale (GAS), Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS) and Psychiatric Evaluation Scale (PES). The 48 subjects were classified into three groups, 16 in the phenothiazine response group, 19 in the butyrophenone response group and 13 in the nonresponse group. For the schizophrenics who displayed negative symptoms such as motor retardation and blunted affect, while displaying milder positive symptoms, phenothiazine drugs were effective. Contrarily, for the schizophrenics who displayed severe positive symptoms such as hallucination and delusion while displaying milder negative symptoms, butyrophenone drugs were effective. Large dosages of the drug did not enhance the curative effect in most cases.