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Ziprasidone, haloperidol and clonazepam intramuscular administration in the treatment of agitation symptoms in Chinese patients with schizophrenia: A network meta-analysis
  1. Liang Su1,2,
  2. Zheng Lu1,3,
  3. Shenxun Shi1,2 and
  4. Yifeng Xu1
  1. 1Shanghai Mental Health Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China
  2. 2Department of Psychiatry, Huashan Hospital, Fudan University, School of Medicine, Shanghai, China
  3. 3Department of Psychiatry, Tongji Hospital, Tongji University, School of Medicine, Shanghai, China
  1. Correspondence to Yifeng Xu; hyyyyb{at}gmail.com

Abstract

Background Agitation is very common in patients with acute stage schizophrenia, and injection of antipsychotics and clonazepam is widely used. Network meta-analysis of these comparisons among three injection treatments has been seldom reported.

Aim To compare the efficacy and safety of various injections for agitation symptoms in Chinese patients with schizophrenia.

Methods Searches were made in PubMed, Embase and Web of Knowledge, Cochrane Library, Wanfang data, CNKI, SinoMed and VIP databases up to 18 February 2018. Standard search strategies were performed by two reviewers according to the Cochrane Review Group. The Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials statement was used to assess the methodological quality of the studies. STATA was used to perform meta-analysis. The Cochrane Grades of Recommendation, Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) was used to assess the strength of evidence.

Results A total of 15 studies were included in the network meta-analysis. There were 11 studies comparing ziprasidone with haloperidol, and four studies comparing haloperidol with clonazepam. The results showed that ziprasidone is more effective than haloperidol and clonazepam (sucra: 77.2, 72.8 and 0) in the treatment of agitation symptoms. There was the effect size (standardised mean difference (SMD)) in the three groups: haloperidol: SMD=2.278, 95% CI 1.836 to 2.719; ziprasidone: SMD=2.536, 95% CI 2.082 to 2.990; and clonazepam: SMD=1.360, 95% CI 0.127 to 2.593. The acceptability was assessed by the incidence of excessive sedation, which showed that ziprasidone and haloperidol were similar with both being superior to clonazepam (sucra: 0.3, 0.7 and 99.0). Ziprasidone had significantly less adverse effects than haloperidol in effects of extrapyramidal system (EPS) (z=5.01, p<0.001). There were no statistically significant differences between haloperidol and ziprasidone in tachycardia and abnormal ECG (z=1.69, p=0.091; z=0.87, p=0.386; respectively). Based on GRADE, the strength of the evidence for primary outcome was ‘medium’.

Conclusion Our results suggested that ziprasidone was more suitable than haloperidol and clonazepam in the treatment of agitation symptoms in Chinese patients with schizophrenia, according to the efficacy and acceptability of these three intramuscular injection medications.

  • schizophrenia
  • agitation
  • ziprasidone
  • haloperidol
  • clonazepam
  • network meta-analysis

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Footnotes

  • Correction notice This article has been corrected since it was first published. Figures 4-6 were incorrect at the time of publication. They have been amended.

  • Contributors LS: document retrieval, data entry, statistical analysis and thesis writing. ZL: data entry and thesis writing. SS: document retrieval and thesis writing.

    YX: literature evaluation, data checking and thesis writing.

  • Funding Shanghai Municipal Hospital's Emerging Frontier Technology Joint Research Project (SHDC12012109) Shanghai Open Project of Key Laboratory of Severe Psychiatry (13dz2260500).

  • Competing interests None declared.

  • Patient consent Not required.

  • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

  • Data sharing statement No additional data are available.