Relapse of psychiatric symptoms after discontinuation of antipsychotics in pregnant women with schizophrenia: a retrospective study

This study aimed to examine the effect of discontinuation of antipsychotic medication on the relapse of psychiatric symptoms in pregnant women with schizophrenia. We investigated the medical records of all consecutive pregnant women with schizophrenia who continuously visited and delivered their children at Chiba University Hospital from January 2007 to January 2019. We retrospectively assessed the scores on the Clinical Global Impression of Change scale (CGI-C) during the period when psychiatric symptoms changed most during the pregnancy. A CGI-C score of 5 or more was defined as a relapse. Twenty-eight patients consisting of the maintained treatment group (n = 18) and the discontinuation group (n= 10) were recruited. During pregnancy, the relapse rate in the maintained treatment group (16.7%) was significantly lower than that in the discontinuation group (90.0%). This study demonstrates a high relapse rate in pregnant women discontinuing their antipsychotic medication, as well as during the non-pregnancy period.