The Role of Maintenance Therapy and Relatives' Expressed Emotion in Relapse of Schizophrenia: A Two-Year Follow-up

Abstract

SummaryA two-year follow-up study was conducted, mainly from case notes, of patients who had originally taken part in a study of the influence of relatives' expressed emotion on schizophrenic relapse. It was found that in the two years following discharge from hospital patients from high expressed emotion homes had a significantly greater relapse rate than those from low expressed emotion homes.The prophylactic effect of maintenance drugs was no longer evident for patients from high expressed emotion homes at the two-year follow-up. By contrast, a significant protective effect of maintenance therapy emerged for patients from low expressed emotion homes.The interpretation of these findings is discussed.