Sexual dysfunction in patients treated with atypical antipsychotics.

Atypical antipsychotics can provide improvement in schizophrenic symptomatology but also may cause side effects, such as erectile dysfunction and decreased libido, which can be problematic for patients. In order to keep patients symptomatically stable and to help alleviate these side effects, clinicians should alter the treatment strategy, possibly by switching medications, to encourage adherence to the medication as well as optimize patients' outcomes. To establish clinically useful standards for switching agents, more studies are needed that focus on gradual cross-titration methods to achieve therapeutic doses for patients.