ORIGINAL ARTICLE   

Minerva Psichiatrica 2017 June;58(2):85-9

DOI: 10.23736/S0391-1772.17.01930-6

Copyright © 2017 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

A study of drug utilization pattern of psychotropic drugs among female patients with psychotic disorders: a prospective study

Mamatha KRISHNA MURTHY ¹, Hemendra SINGH ², Santh R. THAKUR ³ ✉

¹ Faculty of Pharmacy, Ramaiah University of Applied Sciences, Bengaluru, India; ² Department of Psychiatry, M.S. Ramaiah Medical College, Bengaluru, India; ³ Department of Pharmacology, Institute of Pharmaceutical Technology, Sri Padmavati Mahila Visvavidyalayam, Tirupati, India

BACKGROUND: There are variations of psychopathology of psychotic illnesses among female patients. Psychotropic drugs remain the mainstay for the treatment of psychotic disorders. There are very few studies on drug utilization pattern among female patients with psychotic disorders. This study aimed to analyze the prescription trend of psychotropic drugs among female psychotic patients.
METHODS: This hospital-based prospective observational study was carried out in the Psychiatry Department of a tertiary care center for a period of 3 years. A total of 184 female patients with psychotic disorders were reviewed for analyzing the prescription pattern by using WHO drug indicators wherein patients were categorized according to ICD-10 criteria.
RESULTS: The majority of patients (30.9%) belonged to the age group of 40-49 years. Schizophrenia was the most common psychotic disorder followed by acute psychosis and post-partum psychosis, 40.7%, 28.2% and 8.1% respectively. Atypical antipsychotics (25.21%), benzodiazepines (15.44%) were found to be the most common psychotropic drug categories prescribed. The most frequently prescribed atypical antipsychotics were risperidone (48.9%) and olanzapine (21%) and typical antipsychotics were chlorpromazine (47.7%) and haloperidol (38.6%). Polypharmacy was found in 42.5% of the prescriptions with an average of 3.16 drugs per prescription. The prescriptions with injectable drugs accounted for 4.28% while 11.41% of the prescriptions contained psychotropic fixed dose combination.
CONCLUSIONS: Atypical antipsychotics and benzodiazepines were the most commonly used drugs. Polypharmacy, even though a treatment strategy to manage patients, predisposes patients to adverse events and adherence issues.

KEY WORDS: Prescription drugs - Psychotropic drugs - Polypharmacy - Psychotic disorders - Female