Death and drug treatment in a psychiatric hospital

218 deaths occurring in a psychiatric hospital during a 3-year period were reviewed and their drug treatment was compared with that of a control group. 75% of the patients suffered from an organic psychosis. Patients received a mean of 2.4 different drugs on the day of death and only 23.6% of the prescriptions were for psychotropic drugs. 20 patients died suddenly and although more of these individuals had received tricyclic antidepressants and phenothiazines than their controls, these differences were not statistically significant.