Psychotherapy of schizophrenia. What happens to treatment dropouts.

Sixty-nine nonchronic schizophrenic patients who had dropped out of psychotherapy were studied with regard both to reasons for dropping out and their subsequent clinical course, assessed by means of a retrospective, semistructured interview. Their 2-year outcomes were compared with those of a group of similar patients who remained in psychotherapy. It was found that the patients who dropped out were markedly heterogeneous in terms of their reasons for dropping out, and their subsequent outcomes. As a group, they received an unexpectedly substantial amount of subsequent psychiatric treatment, and after 2 years did not generally differ from those remaining in psychotherapy on measures of social or occupational functioning.