clinical trial of h2 blocker: augmentation treatment of schizophrenia

purpose: the purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of famotidine, a h2 blocker, in the improving schizophrenic patients’ symptoms.   method: 28 chronic schizophrenic patients were randomly assigned to two groups, with each group consisting of 14 patients. one group received 20 mg of haloperidol per day and the other group was on 40 mg famotidine and 20 mg of haloperidol per day. the effectiveness was assessed by the positive and negative symptoms scale which was administered at the beginning of the treatment, 28 days and again 42 days following the beginning of the experiment. data were analyzed by descriptive statistics and mann-whitney test.   findings: the findings indicated that famotidine group showed a reduction in all of the symptoms of schizophrenia than the control group. there was a difference between the two group in terms of the negative symptoms. however, this difference was not statistically significant.   conclusion : probably low permeability of famotidine in the central nervous system and the chronicity of patients’ symptoms were responsible for the ineffectiveness of this drug.