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This page is an AI-assisted Turkish summary of the study presented at the 26th World Congress of Psychiatry. The study belongs to the presenting authors; please refer to the original source when citing it.

SO349

Improving treatment adherence in early psychosis care: comparative outcomes with cariprazine in first-episode psychosis patients with co-occurring cannabis use

ENHANCING ENGAGEMENT IN EARLY PSYCHOSIS CARE: COMPARATIVE OUTCOMES WITH CARIPRAZINE IN FIRST EPISODE PSYCHOSIS PATIENTS WITH COMORBID CANNABIS USE

One-year service engagement was numerically higher among first-episode psychosis patients receiving cariprazine, but the difference did not reach statistical significance due to the small sample size.

The aim was to evaluate the association between cariprazine treatment and one-year service engagement in first-episode psychosis (FEP), both in the overall cohort and among patients reporting cannabis use at baseline. At a Greek early intervention unit in Athens, 68 FEP patients whose treatment was selected by their clinician as part of routine care were followed for 12 months in a naturalistic cohort; the mean age was 25.2 ± 6.0 years, 66% were male (45 patients), the mean duration of education was 13.9 ± 2.1 years, and 51/68 (75%) had an F20–F29 diagnosis. Fifteen patients received cariprazine (67% in combination with another antipsychotic), and 26 patients reported cannabis use at baseline. One-year engagement was 93.3% (14/15) in the cariprazine group and 73.6% (39/53) among those receiving other antipsychotics; the absolute difference of 19.7 percentage points corresponded to an odds ratio (OR) of 5.03 but did not reach significance on Fisher’s exact test (p=0.161). In an analysis adjusted for age, sex, years of education, diagnostic group, and baseline cannabis use, the adjusted OR was 7.20 for cariprazine (95% confidence interval 0.75 to 68.86; p=0.087), 0.29 for baseline cannabis use (p=0.061), and 1.43 for education (p=0.042). In the subgroup of 26 patients using cannabis at baseline, engagement was 80.0% (4/5) with cariprazine and 61.9% (13/21) with other antipsychotics (OR 2.46; Fisher’s exact p=0.628); the authors note that this advantage remained descriptive because the subgroup included only five patients receiving cariprazine. The poster explicitly emphasizes that the findings are exploratory, that association does not establish causation, and that small subgroups produce wide confidence intervals. In conclusion, antipsychotic selection may matter not only for symptom control but also for treatment adherence, and cariprazine’s D3-preferring pharmacological profile warrants further investigation in patients with a dual diagnosis of psychosis and cannabis dependence.

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