Schizotypal personality disorder (SPD) is characterised by thought disorders, experiences of
illusions, obsessive ruminations, bizarre or eccentric behaviour, cognitive problems and deficits in social functioning - symptoms that SPD shares with
schizophrenia. Efforts have been undertaken to investigate the relationship between these conditions regarding genetics, pathophysiology, and phenomenology. However, treatment of SPD with
antipsychotics has received less scientific attention. Embase and PubMed databases were searched using all known generic names of
antipsychotics as search terms in combination with the following diagnostic terms:
latent schizophrenia, schizotypal disorder, latent type
schizophrenia, or SPD. Studies were categorised according to evidence level on the basis of their methodology from A, being the best, to E, being the worst. Five hundred and nine studies were retrieved and scrutinised. Sixteen studies, from the period 1972 to 2012, on
antipsychotic treatment of SPD were extracted. Four studies were categorised as evidence level A, two as level B, six as level C and three as level D, with one study level E. Only four randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trials, on subjects with well-defined diagnoses, exists. Only
amisulpride,
risperidone and
thiothixene have been studied according to evidence level A. This result warrants further high quality studies of the effects of
antipsychotic treatment of SPD.