Psychopharmaka

Different indications, warnings and precautions, and contraindications for the same drug—an international comparison of prescribing information for commonly used psychiatric drugs

“…A team of pharmacists, clinical pharmacologists and psychiatrists performed an in‐depth comparison of the official German, Swiss, British and US‐American prescribing information of 10 top prescribed psychiatric drugs. To identify a representative sample of drugs, we sorted all psychiatric drugs available in Germany by the number of defined daily doses (DDD) prescribed . The DDD is defined as “the assumed average maintenance dose per day for a drug used for its main indication in adults.” We selected the 10 top prescribed drugs (Table ) that are also marketed in the UK, the USA and Switzerland .…”

“…To identify a representative sample of drugs, we sorted all psychiatric drugs available in Germany by the number of defined daily doses (DDD) prescribed . The DDD is defined as “the assumed average maintenance dose per day for a drug used for its main indication in adults.” We selected the 10 top prescribed drugs (Table ) that are also marketed in the UK, the USA and Switzerland . These 10 drugs account for more than 50% of all DDD prescribed for psychiatric indications in Germany in 2011 .…”

“…The DDD is defined as “the assumed average maintenance dose per day for a drug used for its main indication in adults.” We selected the 10 top prescribed drugs (Table ) that are also marketed in the UK, the USA and Switzerland . These 10 drugs account for more than 50% of all DDD prescribed for psychiatric indications in Germany in 2011 . For eight drugs (of identical pharmaceutical form), the SPCs were available for all countries from the same manufacturer, whereas for two (generic) drugs, SPCs were only available from different companies.…”