Diagnosis and drug use in mentally retarded, emotionally disturbed adults

Inpatient and outpatient, emotionally disturbed, borderline to severely mentally retarded adults (N = 110) were assessed to evaluate the relationship of medication to psychiatric diagnosis and symptomatology. Patients were assessed on the Psychiatric Instrument for Mentally Retarded Adults, the Beck Depression Inventory, the Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale, the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression, and the Social Performance Survey Schedule--a measure of social adaptation. All these instruments had been modified for use with mentally retarded persons. Comparisons were made evaluating patients receiving major tranquilizers, anticonvulsant and antianxiety drugs, by diagnostic category. Furthermore, an assessment was made of inpatients versus outpatients, based on amount of medication prescribed. It was found that considerable variation in the numbers of drugs and the amount of drug used occurred, based on the type of psychiatric condition, particularly those on informant data on schizophrenia, affective disorder, and adjustment reaction disorder. Implications of these and related results for psychotropic drug use with mentally retarded emotionally disturbed persons are discussed.