Clinical characteristics and rehospitalization in patients with schizophrenia with or without history of amphetamine abuse

Objective: In this study, we intended to study the differences of the clinical characteristics between patients with schizophrenia with or without history of amphetamine abuse and risk factors of rehospitalization. Methods: We used medical records and reviewed electronic database to collect the two schizophrenia groups discharged from the Taoyuan Psychiatric Center from January 1, 2012, to December 31, 2015. Patients with and without amphetamine abuse were defined as case group and control group, respectively. The patients' demographic data and clinical variables were extracted and examined. Results: We identified 80 patients in the case group and 142 patients in the control group. Up to 32.5% of the case group patients still showed a positive urine amphetamine test. The univariate analysis showed that significant differences existed in gender (p < 0.001), age (p < 0.001), marriage (p < 0.05), education (p < 0.001), psychiatric comorbidity (p < 0.05), family history of schizophrenia (p < 0.01), family history of illicit substance use (p < 0.001), history of suicide (p < 0.01), history of violence (p < 0.001), hospitalization days (p < 0.001), and rehospitalization rate (p < 0.05). The result of the logistic regression showed that the number of previous admissions was a positive predictor of rehospitalization and that with family history of schizophrenia was a negative predictor of rehospitalization. The Cox proportional hazards regression model analysis showed that the number of previous admissions was still a positive predictive factor for the rehospitalization. Conclusion: In this study, the characteristics of two study patient groups were different. Patients with schizophrenia and with a history of amphetamine abuse had a tendency of amphetamine abuse and a higher rate of rehospitalization. Further treatment for amphetamine abstinence in the community for this population is warranted to strengthen the study results.