Predicting pharmacotherapy outcome by subjective response.

Subjective response to the initial 24-hour dosage of psychoactive medication was evaluated as a predictor of clinical outcome in 33 drug-free patients with DSM-III diagnoses of functional psychoses. Pretreatment evaluation included measures of symptom severity, role functioning and attitude towards treatment. Clinical improvement after 8-21 days was significantly correlated with subjective response. The author suggests that inquiry regarding a patient's early subjective response to prescribe chemotherapy can help to identify ultimate drug refusal and clinical unresponsiveness.