PharmacoEconomics & Outcomes News 405 - 29 Mar 2003

Antipsychotics often prescribedconcurrently in the US

Coprescribing of antipsychotic drugs is common inthe New York State Office of Mental Health psychiatrichospital system, say US-based researchers.

They used data for 7130 inpatients who receivedantipsychotic medication for ≥ 28 days at one of theNew York state hospitals during 1999 to assess the rateof coprescribing of antipsychotic drugs. The analysisshowed that coprescribing of antipsychotics occurred in37% of patients or 31% of antipsychotic prescribingepisodes. Atypical antipsychotic medications were theleast likely to be coprescribed, particularly clozapine.Medications were usually combined with agents fromoutside their own antipsychotic class. For example, oraltypical antipsychotics were often coprescribed withdepot agents or atypical antipsychotics. Haloperidol andfluphenazine, in both oral and depot forms, were morelikely to be coprescribed with more than one additionalmedication than other antipsychotics.

The mean duration of a coprescribing episode was 97days. Patients aged ≥ 65 years were significantly lesslikely than younger patients to receive concurrentantipsychotics (23% vs 39% of patients). Factorssignificantly associated with a higher frequency ofcoprescribing were prior hospitalisation, a primarydiagnosis of psychotic disorder and African Americanethnicity.Jaffe AB, et al. Antipsychotic medication coprescribing in a large state hospitalsystem. Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety 12: 41-48, Jan-Feb2003 800925455

1

PharmacoEconomics & Outcomes News 29 Mar 2003 No. 4051173-5503/10/0405-0001/$14.95 Adis © 2010 Springer International Publishing AG. All rights reserved