A Retrospective Analysis of Antipsychotic Medication Use with Concomitant Clinical Evaluation in Outpatient Psychiatry Department in Palestine

Abstract

The objective of this paper was to study antipsychotic medication use in the outpatient psychiatry department in Palestine. Methodology: This is a cross sectional study carried out in Palestine on schizophrenic patients aged between 20 -65 whose medications have not been changed in the past six months and they did not have an acute attack in the last year. Information regarding antipsychotic medications use was obtained from patients' medical files; patients' psychiatric symptoms were evaluated using the Expanded Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS-E).Results: More than half (53.1%) of 150 patients were on antipsychotic polypharmacy (APP) with average daily dose of 546.9 ± 254.9 mg chlorpromazine equivalents. The average number (mean ± SD) of medications a patient received was 1.7 ± 0.7. One third of patients on APP regimen received atypical antipsychotic and all of them received at least one conventional antipsychotic. Factors significantly and positively associated with APP were: use of anticholinergic agents (P<0.001), conventional antipsychotics (P<0.001), depot formulations (P<0.001) and prescribing higher doses of antipsychotics (P<0.001). Discussion and Conclusion: Antipsychotic polypharmacy in this study was common. Adherence to international guidelines in the treatment of schizophrenia is recommended.