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Measurement-Based Care (MBC) is a clinical approach that uses objective measurements to quantitatively assess patients' symptoms and conditions as the basis for treatment, with the assessments shared with patients and used in practice. One indicator of MBC, the Guideline Adherence Rate (GAR), provides a comprehensive evaluation of the extent to which psychiatrists' prescribing practices conform to clinical practice guidelines. Although the practice of MBC has been reported to improve clinical outcomes in depressive disorders, improvements in clinical outcomes with MBC have not been reported in schizophrenia. We examined longitudinal changes in psychiatric symptoms and the GAR among patients with schizophrenia receiving MBC.

Sixty-five patients with schizophrenia were included. The Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) total score and the GAR were compared longitudinally between time point 1 (T1) and time point 2 (T2).

The PANSS total score was significantly lower at T2 than at T1. The GAR was significantly higher at T2 than at T1.

Improvements in psychiatric symptoms were consistent with previous findings on MBC reported in depressive disorders. In addition, improvements in the GAR indicated that psychiatrists' prescribing practices aligned more closely with the guideline over time within an MBC environment. These findings suggest that the MBC framework may also be clinically useful in the treatment of schizophrenia. The results were obtained from a specialized schizophrenia outpatient clinic in a national center, which represents a best-case environment for guideline adherence and monitoring. Therefore, further studies are needed to examine the generalizability of these findings.