Critical study of the use of long acting neuroleptics (depot neuroleptics) in France.

Long acting neuroleptics (L.A.N.) represent 11% of the medical prescription of neuroleptics in France (about 40,000 patients in 1974). Some psychiatrists remain reluctant to prescribe long acting-neuroleptics and many problems related to their use are still solved empirically:1) relation between the posology of the standard Neuroleptic and the corresponding L.A.N. 2)the problem of dose-interval. 3) the necessary prescription of an parkinsonian. The superiority of N.A.P. over the Neuroleptic Standard has received no experimental confirmation in France, but the L.A.N. appear to us as an original therapy, the "pivot chemotherapy" around which psychotherapy and sociotherapy can be arranged without anarchical and ceaseless changes of neuroleptic compounds and of posology.