Author Interviews, Mental Health Research, Pharmacology, Schizophrenia / 21.07.2016
Patients With Schizophrenia Often Discharged on Multiple Medications
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Glorimar Ortiz, MS
Senior Researcher/Statistician
NRI-National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors Research Institute
Falls Church, VA 22042
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Despite the lack of empirical evidence that antipsychotic polypharmacy produces greater outcomes to antipsychotic monotherapy, and that several clinical guidelines recommend against it, patients with a diagnosis of schizophrenia continue to being discharged on polypharmacy. Over the past few years, attempts have been made to lower the rate of antipsychotic polypharmacy throughout the country. Most of the existing literature on this topic are based on Medicaid claims data which exclude data for patients discharged from state psychiatric inpatient hospitals. Our study is very important because it is the first time that data on the use of antipsychotic medications are analyzed using a large sample of discharges from state psychiatric inpatient hospitals. These hospitals now have the opportunity to benchmark their antipsychotic medication use rate with national rates more accurately, and therefore, develop and implement performance improvement activities that are more precise. The study found that 12% of all discharges were prescribed two or more antipsychotic medications. Of those patients discharged on at least one antipsychotic medication, 18% were prescribed two or more antipsychotics. The study also found that patients with a schizophrenia diagnosis and an inpatient hospital stay of 3 months or longer are more likely of being discharged on polypharmacy, and that the main reason for this was to reduce patient’s symptoms. Antipsychotic polypharmacy affects nearly 10,000 patients with schizophrenia annually in state psychiatric inpatient hospitals.
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