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Objective: In this study, our main objective is to describe the baseline findings of the Intercontinental Schizophrenia Outpatient Health Outcomes (IC-SOHO) study in Turkey.
Method: The IC-SOHO study is an ongoing prospective, three-year non-interventional observational study of schizophrenia treatment, clinical characteristics and mental health services utilization in Turkey. The study population consisted of non-hospitalized patients who had started or switched into a new antipsychotic.
Results: The baseline findings of the IC-SOHO study (Turkish Subset) appear to reflect clinical features of schizophrenia patients in Turkey (n=692). Overall the patients were moderately to markedly ill (66.7%) and already overweight (46.4%) and obese (7.3%) when they entered the study. Functionally the majority of patients were not involved in social activities, could not care for themselves and were unemployed. Substance and alcohol dependency/abuse was not a major problem in this study population. The majority of patients at baseline were treated with an antipsychotic (86.1%) and oral typicals antipsychotics were the most commonly used drugs 6 months prior to the study. Sexual adverse events were the most frequently reported amongst the surveyed adverse events and overall compliance/adherence was moderate.
Conclusion: The baseline IC-SOHO findings highlighted various clinical and functional characteristics and antipsychotic use patterns in a group of schizophrenic outpatients in a naturalistic setting in Turkey. Once completed, the IC-SOHO study will add further information to this knowledge base