Psychopathological and metabolic predictors for quality of life in antipsychotic-naïve patients with first-episode psychosis

Objective: To evaluate predictive value of psychopathological and metabolic parameters on quality of life (QoL) in a cohort of antipsychotic-naïve patients with first-episode psychosis (FEP), and to investigate the temporal stability of these parameters in patients undergoing initiation of antipsychotic treatment.
Methods: Clinical assessments including Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS), Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS), and Metabolic Syndrome (MetS) according to the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) were obtained at baseline and after 6 weeks of initial antipsychotic monotherapy with either amisulpride or aripiprazole. Linear correlation analyses were performed to examine associations between the abovementioned clinical assessments and subdomains.
Results: Data was obtained from 128 (53.9% male) and 90 (53.3% male) patients at baseline and follow-up, respectively. MetS prevalence was 19.8% before and 18.8% after 6 weeks. BMI and weight significantly increased during the 6 weeks (p < 0.001), as did scores on two of the four SWLS subdomains (p < 0.001). Negative and positive symptoms significantly decreased during the 6 weeks (p < 0.01). Preliminary analyses revealed significant negative correlations of negative and positive symptoms with SWLS subdomains at baseline, and of negative and positive symptoms, weight, BMI, and waist circumference with SWLS subdomains after 6 weeks (p < 0.05).
Conclusion: Strong associations were observed between psychopathological and metabolic parameters and QoL in patients with FEP. Further analyses comprise multiple linear regression analyses with additional feature selection using cross-validation, in order to uncover potential predictors for QoL in patients with FEP.