"The goal of this practice guideline is to improve the quality of care and treatment outcomes for patients with schizophrenia. The guideline aims to help clinicians optimize care for their patients by providing evidence-based statements that are intended to enhance knowledge and increase the appropriate use of evidence-based pharmacological and nonpharmacological treatments for schizophrenia. In addition, it includes statements related to assessment and treatment planning, which are an integral part of patient-centered care"--

The American Psychiatric Association (APA) is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education to sponsor continuing medical education for physicians.

Developed by experts on schizophrenia and exhaustively reviewed by APA members, the "American Psychiatric Association Practice Guideline for the Treatment of Patients With Schizophrenia" provides therapists with a set of patient care strategies that will aid their clinical decision making. The guideline describes the best and most appropriate treatments available to patients with schizophrenia, including psychopharmacological treatments, ECT, and psychosocial and community interventions. It delineates the process of treatment planning and identifies areas in which research may improve our understanding and management of this condition. This guideline will also help managed care organizations develop more scientifically based and clinically sensitive criteria for the utilization and reimbursement of psychiatric services. Armed with these guidelines, clinicians can improve the care of their patients with schizophrenia and enable them to lead happier and more productive lives.

This book contains Quick Reference Guides (QRGs) to all of the published APA Practice Guidelines. QRGs are created by abstracting the crucial information from the text of the full guideline, with greatest emphasis placed on retaining the material most directly relevant to the treatment decision making, and are intended for day-to-day work with patients. This compendium contains 13 Quick Reference Guides: Acute Stress Disorder and Posttraumtic Stress Disorder Alzheimer's Disease and Other Dementias of Late Life Borderline Personality Disorder Bipolar Disorder Delirium Eating Disorders HIV/AIDS Major Depressive Disorder Panic Disorder Psychiatric Evaluation of Adults Schizophrenia Substance Use Disorders Suicide Each guide is derived from the full text of a practice guideline developed by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) and published originally in "The American Journal of Psychiatry." The purpose of these QRGs is to facilitate clinical use of APA's practice guidelines by physicians. Although the practice guidelines provide detailed recommendations for treatment and comprehensively describe the evidence to support those recommendations, their length and text format do not allow for easy use in the psychiatrist's day-to-day work with patients.

The guideline offers clear, concise, and actionable recommendation statements to help clinicians to incorporate recommendations into clinical practice, with the goal of improving quality of care. Each recommendation is given a rating that reflects the level of confidence that potential benefits of an intervention outweigh potential harms.