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Psychotropic drug prescribing survey in a Canadian rehabilitation and complex care facility
Caroline A Warnock1, Ian D Ferguson, James Lam
1Providence Healthcare and Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto, ON, Canada.
Objective:
To describe rates of inpatient prescribing of psychotropic drugs in a rehabilitation and complex continuing care setting.
Design:
Cross-sectional, observational study.
Setting:
Providence Healthcare, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Patients:
Inpatients registered in the hospital on each of four annual audit dates.
Intervention:
An audit of medication profiles for the presence of psychotropic prescriptions, done yearly on a single day in May 2007, 2008, 2010, and 2011.
Main Outcome Measures:
The percentage of inpatients prescribed at least one antidepressant, antipsychotic, benzodiazepine, or zopiclone.
Results:
The percentage of inpatients with at least one prescription for each class of psychotropic drug (ranging from the lowest to highest audit-year results) were as follows: any psychotropic (55% to 63%), benzodiazepines or zopiclone (31% to 40%), antidepressants (24% to 32%), antipsychotics (7% to 13%). Rates of polypharmacy within classes was highest with antidepressants, followed by benzodiazepines (including zopiclone), then antipsychotics.
Conclusion:
Despite the limitations associated with cross-sectional, observational data, rates of prescribing of psychotropic medication, apart from antipsychotics, were high. Future research will be performed to assess appropriateness of prescribing and adverse events.
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