Patients preference of olanzapine orodispersible tablet compared with olanzapine conventional oral tablet in a multinational, randomized, crossover study

Objective:Poor adherence to antipsychotics is a major problem in long term treatment of schizophrenia, a relationship between poor adherence and relapse is well documented in the literature. One of the factors that may affect compliance is antipsychotic formulation. The primary objective of the study was to compare patient preference for olanzapine conventional tablet (OCT) with orodispersible tablet (ODT) as measured by a formulation preference question.Methods:A 12-week open label, randomized, crossover, multinational study (Turkey, Romania, Israel, Brazil, Mexico) conducted to estimate the proportion of patients preferring OCT over ODT after 6 weeks of treatment with each formulation. Outpatients with stable schizophrenia (CGI-S 1%) adverse events were weight increase, hypertriglyceridaemia, and somnolence.Conclusions:Most of the patients who answered the preference question declared to prefer olanzapine orodispersible to conventional formulation. Given the importance of patient's preference as one of the factors for future compliance, olanzapine orodispersible tablet could be a good choice.