Decision Aid to Facilitate Shared Decision Making During Treatment in Schizophrenia

Summary

We hypothesize that the use of a visual decision aid tool to educate patients regarding potential harm with respect to weight gain with olanzapine versus perphenazine can lead to better shared decision making by patients, increase rates of antipsychotic switches and promote weight loss in overweight patients with schizophrenia/schizoaffective disorder.

Our specific aims are the following:

1. To investigate the effects of a visual decision aid, versus care as usual, on patients' perceived difficulties in medical decision making regarding switching antipsychotics in overweight veterans with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder.
2. To investigate the effects of a visual decision aid and a shared decision making model on rate of medication switches (from olanzapine to perphenazine) in overweight veterans with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder.
3. To investigate the effects of a visual decision making aid and shared decision making model on BMI in overweight veterans who switch from olanzapine to perphenazine therapy.

Conditions

• Schizophrenia
• Schizoaffective Disorder

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Visual Decision Aid and Shared Decision Making Model

Visual aid is a graph showing the average weight of patients who take olanzapine versus perphenazine over the course of 18 months. A script explaining the information on the graph, accompanies the graph. Patient may decide to stay on current dose of olanzapine, or be tapered off and prescribed a dose of perphenazine based on current symptoms and tolerability. Perphenazine (4-8mg ORALLY 3 times a day) will be used.

BEHAVIORAL

Usual Care

Usual care is standard clinical discussion and advice from a psychiatrist. Patient may decide to stay on current dose of olanzapine, or be tapered off and prescribed a dose of perphenazine based on current symptoms and tolerability. Perphenazine (4-8mg ORALLY 3 times a day) will be used.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• US Department of Veterans Affairs

  collaborator FED

• Nebraska Educational Biomedical Research Association

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• VA Nebraska Western Iowa Health Care System

  lead FED

Principal Investigators

• Sriram Ramaswamy, M.D. · Department of Veterans Affairs/NWIHCS

• Robert Rosenheck, M.D. · Department of Veterans Affairs/NWIHCS

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

19 Years

Max Age

65 Years

Sex

FEMALE

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2010-10-31

Primary Completion

2012-08-31

Completion

2012-08-31

Countries

• United States

Study Locations