BACKGROUND AND AIMS Data on antipsychotic use were collected in two Canadian long-term care (LTC) facilities. During the one-year study, residents in one facility were relocated to a new facility, allowing examination of the changes in antipsychotic use associated with relocation. METHOD A comparative descriptive design was used. Pharmacy and chart data on antipsychotic use were gathered for ...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES The superiority of atypical antipsychotics (also known as second-generation antipsychotics (SGAs)) over typical antipsychotics (first generation antipsychotics (FGAs)) for negative symptom control in schizophrenic patients is widely debated. The objective of this study was to characterize the time course of the scores of the 3 subscales (positive, negative, general) of...

SUMMARY There is a long history of using antipsychotic medications in the treatment of depressive disorders. Atypical antipsychotics, which have fewer side effects than traditional antipsychotics, have been used as monotherapy or adjunctively with antidepressants to treat depressive disorders with or without psychotic symptoms. The antidepressant effect of atypical antipsychotics involves regul...

Several psychotic disorders, including schizophrenia, may be associated with symptoms of acute agitation and aggression. While drug treatment of agitation is often essential, non-pharmacological interventions, both environmental and behavioral, also play important roles in the complex management of agitated patients. The most extensively used psychotropic drugs are parenteral formulas of conven...

CNS Spectr 13:4 April 2008 279 NEW TREND IN PSYCHOPHARMACOLOGY Dopamine (D)2 partial agonists (DPAs) activate D2 receptors in a manner that is less than the full agonist dopamine yet more than full antagonists (eg, most known antipsychotics). Various DPAs span the spectrum between full agonist at one end and antagonists at the other, with the antipsychotic aripiprazole close to the antagonist e...

BACKGROUND Prevalence of physical comorbidity in severe mental illness is a significant public health concern, but comparative data in people with diagnoses other than schizophrenia are sparse. AIMS To investigate the prevalence of metabolic disease and cardiovascular risk in people with severe mental illness treated with antipsychotics in the community. METHODS Case-control study of 90 peo...

OBJECTIVE To investigate factors associated with non-use of antipsychotics among older schizophrenia residents in long-term institutional care. DESIGN A retrospective study was designed using cross-sectional data gathered between 1 January and 30 June 2006 in Finland. Data were extracted from the Resident Assessment Instrument (RAI) database, based on Minimum Data Set for long-term care facil...

BACKGROUND We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials comparing aripiprazole with pooled antipsychotics in Japanese patients with schizophrenia. METHODS We performed a literature search of data published in PubMed(®), the Cochrane Library database, the Japan Medical Abstracts Society, and PsycINFO(®) up to January 5, 2014. The odds ratio (OR), number-ne...

Depot formulations are not widely used in everyday practice. This study aimed to assess psychiatrists' attitudes toward the use of long-acting injectable (LAI) antipsychotics in schizophrenia. We interviewed 113 French psychiatrists about the factors that influenced their prescription of LAI antipsychotics. Multidimensional and cluster analyses were used to detect correlations. The most importa...

Priapism is characterized by a prolonged and painful erection in the absence of sexual desire and arousal. Priapism is a rare and serious side effect of psychotropic drugs, and is thought to be attributable to blockage of alpha-1 adrenergic receptors in the corpus cavernosum. Although priapism is commonly associated with typical antipsychotics, there are some (but not many) case reports of pria...