Psychiatric polypharmacy: a clinical approach based on etiology and differential diagnosis

Polypharmacy is common clinical practice in the United States for many psychiatric conditions and for many reasons. In this article we encourage clinicians to use the familiar practice of differential diagnosis to systematically identify etiological factors contributing to polypharmacy. We offer a clinical approach based on (1) reviewing the four main factors responsible for polypharmacy (the disease, the patient, the physician, and society) and (2) answering two questions about optimizing medication regimens (What can I do without explicit permission from the patient or others? What can I do with permission from them?). We contend that all physicians share a professional responsibility for prescribing medications judiciously because unnecessary prescribing exposes patients to unwarranted risks and squanders valuable and scarce resources. Psychiatrists can ask themselves a Kantian question: would my way of prescribing lead to good, socially acceptable outcomes if followed by all physicians treating similar patients?