Psychiatric services : a journal of the American Psychiatric Association
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Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical Trial
Use of topical application of lidocaine-prilocaine cream to reduce injection-site pain of depot antipsychotics.
This study took place in Israel and examined the use of a local topical anesthetic cream to ameliorate the pain at the injection site caused by depot antipsychotic medications. Fifteen consecutive outpatients who had schizophrenia and who were under treatment with depot antipsychotic medications were enrolled in this randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover study. ⋯ The degree of pain at the injection site was quantified by the patients' use of a visual analogue scale five minutes after the injection. The application of the lidocaine-prilocaine cream led to a significant reduction of pain compared with the placebo.