Received: 21 June 2019 Revised: 11 February 2020 Accepted: 16 February 2020

DOI: 10.1002/hup.2729

RESEARCH ARTICLE

The effectiveness of long-acting injectable antipsychotics

versus oral antipsychotics in the maintenance treatment of
outpatients with chronic schizophrenia

Su-Chen Fang1,2 | Ding-Lieh Liao3 | Cheng-Yi Huang4 | Chun-Chi Hsu3 |

1 2,5
Shu-Li Cheng | Yu-Hsuan J. Shao

1
Department of Nursing, Mackay Medical
College, New Taipei City, Taiwan Abstract
2
Graduate Institute of Biomedical Informatics, Objective: To compare the psychiatric service utilization between patients who
Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan
only received long-acting injectable antipsychotics (LAIAs) and those who only
3
Department of General Psychiatry, Taoyuan
Psychiatric Center Ministry of Health and received oral antipsychotics (OAPs) in the maintenance treatment of chronic
Welfare, Taoyuan, Taiwan schizophrenia.
4
Department of Community Psychiatry,
Methods: We constructed a cohort of chronic schizophrenia patients who underwent
Bali Psychiatric Center Ministry of Health and
Welfare, New Taipei City, Taiwan maintenance treatment from the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Data-
5
Clinical Big Data Research Center, Taipei base in 2011 and followed these patients for 12 months. We included patients who
Medical University Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan
had been diagnosed with schizophrenia for at least 3 years, were not hospitalized in
Correspondence 2011, and had received 1 year of maintenance treatment. Inverse probability of treat-
Yu-Hsuan J. Shao, Graduate Institute of
Biomedical Informatics, Taipei Medical
ment weighting logistic, linear, and negative binomial regression models were used to
University, 172-1 Keelung Rd., Section 2, estimate associated psychiatric services utilization and adjust for covariate imbal-
Taipei 106, Taiwan.
Email: jonishao@tmu.edu.tw
ances between the LAIAs and OAPs groups.
Results: Among 40,194 patients, 948 (2.36%) received only LAIAs and 39,246
Funding information
Bali Psychiatric Center, Ministry of Health and
(97.64%) received only OAPs. Compared with those who received only OAPs, the
Welfare, Taiwan, Grant/Award Number: sole LAIAs users were associated with a lower percentage of psychiatric hospitaliza-
MOHW#10809
tion (8.4% and 5.8%, respectively; odds ratio: 0.63, p < .01), shorter lengths of hospi-
talization days (82.8 and 65.9, respectively; coefficient [b]: −16.87, p = .03), and
fewer emergency room visits (2.3 and 1.8, respectively; b: −0.24, p < .01) per patient.
Conclusions: Chronic schizophrenia patients who received only LAIs had a lower risk
of disease relapse and a reduction in psychiatric service utilization than those receiv-
ing only OAPs.

KEYWORDS

antipsychotics, long-acting injectable antipsychotics, maintenance treatment, schizophrenia

1 | I N T RO DU CT I O N 2004), illness severity, and illness duration are strongly associated

Antipsychotic drugs are generally recommended for all stages of
schizophrenia for treating psychoses, preventing relapses, and improv-
ing patients' quality of life (Kane & Garcia-Ribera, 2009). Poor drug
adherence (Haro et al., 2007; Weiden, Kozma, Grogg, & Locklear,
with relapses (Robinson et al., 1999) and treatment effectiveness. To
prevent relapses and improve treatment adherence, long-acting inject-
able formulations of antipsychotics were developed. However, results
from large randomized controlled trials (RCTs) (Buckley et al., 2014;
Kane et al., 2009; Macfadden, Ma, Haskins, Bossie, & Alphs, 2010;

Hum Psychopharmacol Clin Exp. 2020;e2729. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/hup © 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 1 of 7
https://doi.org/10.1002/hup.2729
2 of 7
Rosenheck et al., 2011), cohort studies (Taishiro Kishimoto et al.,
2017), and meta-analyses (Taishiro Kishimoto, Nitta, Borenstein,
Kane, & Correll, 2013; T. Kishimoto et al., 2014) have not yet reached
a conclusive result showing that long-acting injectable antipsychotics
(LAIAs) perform better than oral antipsychotics (OAPs) in patients
with schizophrenia. Study designs were suggested as contributing to
this inconsistency (Kirson et al., 2013). Previous studies comparing
the effectiveness between LAIAs and OAPs examined patients in
various stages, which included those in the early phase, chronically
unstable patients (Aggarwal, Sernyak, & Rosenheck, 2012), recently
discharged patients (Doshi, Pettit, Stoddard, Zummo, & Marcus,
2015), and in a period of switching from oral to LAI formulations
(Bernardo et al., 2012; Kane et al., 2009). While the treatment effects
of antipsychotics largely depend on the duration and severity of the
disease (Buchanan et al., 2009; Taishiro Kishimoto et al., 2017; Leh-
man et al., 2004), LAIAs and OAPs may demonstrate various levels of
effectiveness in different stages of schizophrenia.
Previous studies demonstrated that schizophrenia patients who
received maintenance antipsychotic treatment had significantly
lower rates of relapses and hospitalizations, compared to those not
receiving antipsychotics (Leucht et al., 2012). Although patients in
the stage of maintenance treatment have relatively good adherence,
it would still be valuable to know whether LAIAs are superior to
OAPs in providing better control in patients in this stage. Current
data documenting differences in the effectiveness of LAIAs and
OAPs in patients with chronic schizophrenia under maintenance
treatment is limited. Only one study with a small patient number
examined differences in hospitalization rates, lengths of stay, and
numbers of emergency room visits between patients receiving LAIAs
and OAPs, but no significant difference was found between the two
groups (Remington & Khramov, 2001). To elucidate the role of LAIAs
in the stage of maintenance treatment, we used population-based
data to study outcomes of chronic schizophrenia patients who
received 1 year of maintenance treatment with either only LAIAs or
only OAPs.
FANG ET AL.
2 | METHODS AND MATERIALS
2.1 | Data source
A population-based cohort study was using Taiwan's National Health
Insurance (NHI) Research Database (NHIRD). The NHIRD is derived
from Taiwan's single-payer compulsory NHI program, which covers up
to 99% of the 23 million people in Taiwan (http://www.nhi.gov.tw/
english/index.aspx). The NHIRD provides all medical claims data on dis-
ease diagnoses, procedures, prescriptions, demographics, and enroll-
ment profiles of all NHI beneficiaries (Wen, Tsai, & Chung, 2008).
2.2 | Study design and population
We constructed a cohort enrolling patients aged 15–65 years with
chronic schizophrenia in 2011 (baseline period) and followed these
patients for 12 months. The study design is summarized in Figure 1.
Patients with chronic schizophrenia receiving maintenance treatment
were defined as patients who had received a diagnosis of 295 (Interna-
tional Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification
[ICD-9-CM]) at least 3 years prior to 2011, were not hospitalized, and
had received antipsychotic treatment for at least 6 months during the
baseline period. Patients with missing information on sex or age were
excluded (n = 320).
2.3 | Antipsychotic exposure
Exposure to antipsychotics was obtained from ambulatory and inpa-
tient prescription claims data using the Anatomical Therapeutic Chem-
ical (ATC) Classification System code N05A (antipsychotics), but
excluding N05AN (lithium) (World Health Organization, 2014).
Patients were stratified into only LAI and only OAP groups according
to the type of treatment they received during the baseline period. All
FIGURE 1 Study design schematic
FANG ET AL. 3 of 7

recruited patients were required to have received at least 6 months of
antipsychotic medication to ensure that the drug concentration was
maintained in the blood (Ritchie et al., 2010). Additionally, we catego-
rized LAIAs into first-generation antipsychotics (FGA)-LAIs (clopenthixol,
flupentixol, fluphenazine, haloperidol, zuclopenthixol) and a second-
generation antipsychotic (risperidone) to explore the impacts of different
drugs on the outcomes.
2.4 | Clinical outcome measures
associated with LAIAs and OAPs. Linear regression models were
used to estimate the total number of days in psychiatric hospitali-
zation associated with LAIAs and OAPs. Poisson and negative
binomial models were used to estimate the number of psychiatric
emergency room visits associated with LAIAs and OAPs.
Both crude and IPTW-adjusted estimates were generated in each
model.
All statistical analyses were conducted using SAS vers. 9.4 (SAS
Institute, Cary, NC, USA). The statistical significance of relationships

The present study outcomes were psychiatric hospitalization, the total T A B L E 1 Baseline characteristics of the study population
number of days in psychiatric hospitalization, the rate of psychiatric according to the type of antipsychotics used
emergency room (ER) visits, and the average number of emergency Original sample (N = 40,194)
room visits per patient. Psychiatric hospitalization was defined as a
LAIs OAPs
patient admission to any psychiatric hospital or department of psychi-
(n = 948) (n = 39,246) SDa
atry in any general hospital. The total number of days of psychiatric
Mean age at diagnosis in years 36.69 (9.7) 34.14 (10.5) 0.36
hospitalization was the sum of all lengths of stay of each hospitaliza- (SD)
tion during the follow-up period. A psychiatric ER visit was defined as
Age group, n (%)
any visit to the ER in a psychiatric hospital, or an ER visit in a general
15~39 years old 582 (61.4) 27,357 (69.7) 0.53
hospital with a diagnosis of schizophrenia.
40~65 years old 366 (38.6) 11,889 (30.3) 0.53
Sex, n (%)
Female 506 (53.4) 18,344 (46.7) 0.38
2.5 | Covariates
Male 442 (46.6) 20,902 (53.3) 0.38

Covariates that are known to be associated with clinical outcomes in Duration of disease in years, 12.23 (2.8) 11.93 (3.0) 0.15
mean (SD)
patients with schizophrenia were also considered. We included the
age at diagnosis, sex, duration of the disease, comorbid psychiatric Psychiatric comorbidities, n (%)

conditions, and psychiatric service utilization in the baseline period. Mood disorder 66 (6.9) 4,665 (11.9) 0.85

Comorbid psychiatric conditions were defined as any of the follow- Anxiety disorder 60 (6.3) 3,417 (8.7) 0.49
ing diagnoses at least twice in ambulatory claims: mood disorders (ICD- Bipolar disorder 20 (2.1) 1,609 (4.1) 0.99
9-CM: 296.2, 296.3, 300.4, and 311.x), anxiety disorders (ICD-9-CM: Alcohol use disorder 6 (0.6) 572 (1.5) 1.24
300.x except 300.4), alcohol abuse (ICD-9-CM: 291.x, 303.x, 305.0, Substance use disorder 1 (0.1) 201 (0.5) 2.40
357.5, 425.5, 535.3, 571.0, 571.1, 571.2, and 571.3), and substance Psychiatric services utilization
abuse (ICD-9-CM: 292.x, 304.x, 305.2~305.9) (Wu, Cheng, Feng, & Number of emergency room
Chen, 2016). We defined psychiatric service utilization as the number visits, n (%)
of psychiatric ER visits and involvement in a psychiatric home care 0 798 (84.2) 33,519 (85.4) 0.14
program (Zhang, Zhou, & Hu, 1994). 1 99 (10.4) 3,648 (9.3) 0.18
≥2 51 (5.4) 2079 (5.3) 0.02
Received psychiatric home
2.6 | Statistical analysis care, n (%)
No 705 (74.4) 37,902 (96.6) 3.96
All analyses were adjusted for covariates using the inverse probability
Yes 243 (25.6) 1,344 (3.4) 3.96
of treatment weighting (IPTW) to balance differences in baseline
Type of LAI agent, n (%)
characteristics between patients who received only LAIAs and those
FGA-LAI 664 (70.1) -
who received only OAPs. Weights were calculated based on propen-
Risperidone-LAI 273 (28.8) -
sity scores (PSs): 1/PS for the LAIA group and 1/(1 - PS) for the OAP
FGA-LAI and 11 (0.1) -
group. PSs were estimated using a pooled logistic regression adjusted
risperidone-LAI
for the age at diagnosis, sex, duration of disease, psychiatric com-
orbidities, number of emergency room visits, and times receiving a Abbreviations: FGA, first-generation antipsychotic; LAIs, long-acting
injectable antipsychotics; OAPs, oral antipsychotics.
psychiatric home care program during the baseline period. a
SD, standardized mean difference = |P1 − P2|/square root of [P1(1
Logistic regression models were used to estimate the risks − P1) + P2(1 − P2)/2]. They are the same for all categorical variables with
of having a psychiatric hospitalization and a psychiatric ER visit two levels.
4 of 7 FANG ET AL.

was assessed using p < .05. This study was reviewed and approved by
the Joint Institutional Review Board of Taipei Medical University
(TMU-JIRB no. 201610013).
3 | RESULTS
In total, 40,194 patients with schizophrenia were included. Among
these patients, 948 (2.4%) received only LAIAs and 39,246 (97.6%)
received only OAPs. Compared to patients receiving only OAPs, those
receiving only LAIAs were significantly older, had a longer duration of
disease, and were more likely to be female. Additionally, patients
receiving only LAIAs treatment were less likely to have mood disor-
ders, anxiety disorders, bipolar disorders, and alcohol use disorders,
but more likely to receive psychiatric home care than those receiving
only OAP treatment (Table 1). Applying IPTW (weight range of
0.2~10.0, mean = 1.0, standard deviation [SD] = 0.3) to these treat-
ment cohorts created a pseudopopulation of 2,174 patients who

T A B L E 2 Comparisons of the risk of hospitalization and emergency room visits between the long-acting injectable antipsychotics (LAIs) and
oral antipsychotics (OAPs) groups

Number of patients Average number of hospitalization days or visits

IPTW IPTW
n (%) ORa p value ORb p-value Mean (SD) Coefficient p value coefficient p value
Hospitalization
OAPs 3,285 (8.4) Reference – Reference – 82.8 (75.7) Reference – Reference –
LAIs 55 (5.8) 0.68 <.01 0.63 <.01 65.9 (57.1) −16.87 c
0.10 −15.49 d
.03
ER visits
OAPs 6,886 (17.6) Reference – Reference – 2.3 (6.9) Reference – Reference –
LAIs 161 (17.0) 1.02 .73 0.96 .66 1.8 (1.9) −0.25e <0.01 −0.24f <.01

Abbreviations: IPTW, inverse probability of treatment weighting; –, not applicable; SD, standard deviation.
a
The odds ratio (OR) was estimated from the logistic regression model.
b
The OR was estimated from the inverse probability weighted logistic regression model adjusted for age at diagnosis, sex, duration of disease, comorbid
psychiatric conditions, and psychiatric services utilization at the baseline period.
c
The coefficient was estimated from the linear regression model.
d
The coefficient was estimated from the inverse probability weighted linear regression model adjusted for age at diagnosis, sex, duration of disease,
comorbid psychiatric conditions, and psychiatric services utilization at the baseline period.
e
The coefficient was estimated from the negative binomial regression models.
f
The coefficient was estimated from the inverse probability weighted negative binomial regression models adjusted for age at diagnosis, sex, duration of
disease, comorbid psychiatric conditions, and psychiatric services utilization at the baseline period.

T A B L E 3 Risk of hospitalization and emergency room (ER) visits in patients receiving different classes of long-acting injectable antipsychotics
(LAIs) compared to those receiving oral antipsychotics (OAPs)

Number of patients Average number of hospitalization days or visits

IPTW IPTW
n (%) ORa p value ORb p value Mean (SD) Coefficient p value coefficient p value
Hospitalization
OAPs 3,285 (8.4) Reference – Reference – 82.8 (75.7) Reference – Reference –
FGA-LAIs 36 (5.4) 0.63 <.01 0.58 <.01 67.0 (52.5) −15.74c .21 −12.91d .21
Risperidone-LAI 17 (6.2) 0.73 .20 0.73 <.01 61.6 (68.2) −21.21 c
.25 −10.36 d
.18
ER visits
OAPs 6,886 (17.6) Reference – Reference – 2.3 (6.9) Reference – Reference –
FGA-LAIs 116 (17.5) 1.00 .96 0.98 .85 1.9 (2.1) −0.16e .10 −0.18f .04
Risperidone-LAI 43 (15.8) 0.88 .44 1.06 .36 1.6 (1.4) −0.37 e
.03 −0.39 f
<.01

Abbreviations: IPTW, inverse probability of treatment weighting; −, not applicable; FGA, first-generation antipsychotic; SD, standard deviation.
a
The odds ratio (OR) was estimated from the logistic regression model.
b
The OR was estimated from the inverse probability weighted logistic regression model adjusted for age at diagnosis, sex, duration of disease, comorbid
psychiatric conditions, and psychiatric services utilization at the baseline period.
c
The coefficient was estimated from the linear regression model.
d
The coefficient was estimated from the inverse probability weighted linear regression model adjusted for age at diagnosis, sex, duration of disease,
comorbid psychiatric conditions, and psychiatric services utilization at the baseline period.
e
The coefficient was estimated from the negative binomial regression models.
f
The coefficient was estimated from the inverse probability weighted negative binomial regression models adjusted for age at diagnosis, sex, duration of
disease, comorbid psychiatric conditions, and psychiatric services utilization at the baseline period.
FANG ET AL.
received only LAIAs and 39,278 patients who received only OAPs
(Table S1).
3.1 | Risks of hospitalization and ER visits
During the follow-up period, 3,340 patients (8.3%) were hospitalized,
among whom 55 (5.8%) were receiving LAIAs treatment and 3,285
(8.4%) were receiving OAP treatment. Patients receiving only LAIAs
treatment had a significantly lower risk of experiencing psychiatric
hospitalization (OR = 0.63). Among hospitalized patients, the LAI
group had a shorter length of hospitalization than did the OAP group
(coefficients [b] = −15.49). Although the percentages of patients with
a psychiatric ER visit were similar between the only LAIAs and only
OAP groups (OR = 0.96), the average number of ER visits was signifi-
cantly smaller in patients receiving only LAIAs than those receiving
only OAPs (coefficients [b] = −0.24) (Table 2).
We compared the risks of hospitalization and psychiatric ER visits
per patient associated with FGA- and risperidone-LAIs with OAP
treatment (Table 3). Patients receiving either FGA- or risperidone-LAIs
showed a lower risk of hospitalization, and respective ORs were 0.58
(p < .01) and 0.73 (p < .01). Mean lengths of hospitalization were
shorter in the FGA- and risperidone-LAI groups compared to the OAP
group, but this did not reach statistical significance due to the small
numbers of patients. On the other hand, there was no significant dif-
ference observed in percentages of patients with an ER visit among
patients receiving FGA- and risperidone-LAIs compared to those
receiving OAP treatment. However, both FGA- and risperidone-LAI
patients were associated with low numbers of ER visits. The coeffi-
cients (b) was −0.18 (p = .04) and −0.39 (p < .01) for FGA- and
risperidone-LAI patients, respectively.
4 | DISCUSSION
In this population-based study, we find that chronic schizophrenia
patients receiving only LAIAs had better outcomes than those receiv-
ing only OAPs during maintenance treatment. Our results showed
that among stable chronic schizophrenia patients, those who used
only LAIAs were associated with a lower rate of psychiatric hospitali-
zation, a shorter length of stay, and fewer emergency room visits per
patient than those who used only OAPs. These results were similar to
a recent nationwide cohort database study that the LAIAs had a lower
risk of re-hospitalization compared to equivalent oral formulations
(Tiihonen et al., 2017). Our findings suggested that even in chronic
schizophrenia patients whose symptoms were relatively stable, LAIAs
may still benefit patients in their maintenance treatment.
On the other hand, most current studies reported the effective-
ness of LAIAs in patients who received LAIAs combined with OAP
treatment at the same time. Patients often receive both LAIAs and
OAPs because their illness is unstable (Aggarwal et al., 2012), or they
are in the post-hospital discharge stage (Doshi et al., 2015) or in the
period switching from oral to LAI formulations (Bernardo et al., 2012).
5 of 7
During the switching period, these patients have a heightened risk of
deterioration and psychotic relapse or exacerbation which increases
the difficulty of fairly evaluating the effectiveness of LAIAs and OAPs
(Offord, Wong, Mirski, Baker, & Lin, 2013). In addition, patients
receiving LAIAs combined with OAPs may be at different stages of
their diseases and have different psychological comorbidities that
contribute to their current conditions.
To ensure that patients are in a similar course of their disease, we
included patients who were receiving only OAPs or only LAIAs in this
study. Also, we adapted the IPTW method to adjust for baseline dif-
ferences in clinical characteristics to increase the comparability of
patients in these two groups and minimize confounding.
Despite there being no statistical difference in the rate of ER
visits between patients receiving only LAIAs and those receiving only
OAPs, among patients who went to the ER, there was a much lower
average number of ER visits in patients who were receiving LAIAs
than those who were receiving OAPs. Along with a reduced risk in
hospitalization and length of hospital stay, our results suggested
that LAIAs may be associated with reduced healthcare utilization
compared to OAPs. In addition, we found that FGA-LAIs and
risperidone-LAI were both associated with a lower rate of psychiatric
hospitalization compared to OAPs. These results support our main
findings and provide robust evidence for the risk–benefit balance
when making clinical decisions even in stable chronic schizophrenia
patients.
Findings from several studies derived from the western popula-
tion showed that the percentage of LAIAs prescriptions ranged from
17.3% to 29% (Barnes, Shingleton-Smith, & Paton, 2009; West et al.,
2007). Several reasons might help to explain the low prescribing rates
in our population. First, the differences may probably due to the
slightly different definition of inclusion criteria. Our study focused on
the comparison of the effectiveness of LAIAs vs. OAPs in the popula-
tion undergoing maintenance treatment. Therefore, we defined LAIAs
users as those who received sole LAIAs for more than 1 year. How-
ever, even with similar criteria, the proportion of schizophrenia
patients used sole LAIAs in our study (3%) was only half of the per-
centage as Williams et al. study in 2006 (6%). This may be explained
by the findings that less than 10% of patients treated with LAIAs more
than 1-year in Taiwan (Wu et al., 2016). Second, several factors would
influence psychiatrists' prescribing practices such as patients' or psy-
chiatrists' perception, drug costs, and insurance coverage (Parellada &
Bioque, 2016). To explore the reasons for the low prescription rate in
Taiwan, future studies would be needed.
4.1 | Strengths and limitations
Several strengths of this study are worth mentioning. Our patients
were taken from a national cohort of schizophrenia patients who only
received either LAIs or OAPs and those who received LAIAs combined
with OAP augmentation were excluded. Few clinical trials compared
the effectiveness between LAIs with OAPs similar to our definition.
Secondary, this is a study that focuses on chronic patients during
6 of 7
maintenance treatment rather than an acute patient. In addition, psy-
chiatric comorbidities at the baseline were considered and included
when adjusting for differences in patients between the LAI and OAP
groups.
There were several limitations to this study. First, due to the nature
of the database, unmeasured confounders may still exist in our results.
Information on symptom severity, cognitive function, and adverse
effects was unavailable in this database. However, we assessed the
psychiatric services of each patient in the baseline period and included
patients who were considered stable (received sole treatments for at
least 6 months in the baseline period) to ensure that the severity of dis-
ease was relatively comparable between the two groups. In addition, to
reduce the potential confounding effect, we used an IPTW method
considering age, gender, psychological comorbidities, and disease
duration to reduce the imbalance in baseline characteristics between
patients in the two groups. Second, lifestyle factors, socioeconomic
status, patients' social support, and psychiatrist's personal preferences
were not included in our study. We cannot completely rule out the pos-
sibility that these factors may have influenced the chance of receiving
LAIs or OAPs. Finally, our target population was chronic schizophrenic
outpatients in the maintenance treatment, although the LAI group did
have a significantly lower risk of relapse in the aspects of psychiatric
hospitalization, shorter lengths of hospitalization days, and fewer emer-
gency room visits, these findings cannot be extrapolated to those with
more unstable/severe illness.
5 | C O N CL U S I O N S
In the stage of maintenance treatment, chronic schizophrenia patients
who received only LAIs demonstrated a lower risk of disease relapse
and a reduction in psychiatric service utilization than those receiving
only OAPs.
ACKNOWLEDGEMEN TS
We would like to thank the Bureau of Health Promotion, Department
of Health of Taiwan, for the provision of the data. We are grateful to
the Bali Psychiatric Center, Ministry of Health and Welfare, Taiwan
(no. MOHW#10809), for funding this research. These sources had no
further role in this study design, in the data collection and analysis, in
the writing of the report, and in the decision to submit the paper for
publication.
CONF LICT OF IN TE RE ST
All authors declare that they have no conflict of interest with respect
to this work.
COMPLIANCE WITH ETHICAL STANDARDS
This article contains no studies with human participants performed by
any of the authors.
ORCID
Yu-Hsuan J. Shao https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0757-1901
FANG ET AL.
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SUPPORTING INF ORMATION
Additional supporting information may be found online in the
Supporting Information section at the end of this article.
How to cite this article: Fang S-C, Liao D-L, Huang C-Y,
Hsu C-C, Cheng S-L, Shao Y-HJ. The effectiveness of long-
acting injectable antipsychotics versus oral antipsychotics in
the maintenance treatment of outpatients with chronic
schizophrenia. Hum Psychopharmacol Clin Exp. 2020;e2729.
https://doi.org/10.1002/hup.2729