Objective: To identify updated trends in antipsychotic prescribing patterns in patients with schizophrenia in East Asia. Methods: Using the data from the 2001, 2004, and 2008 Research on East Asia Psychotropic Prescription (REAP) studies, we compared the proportions of acute inpatients (stay <6 months), new long-stay patients (6 months to 3 years), and old long-stay patients (≥3 years), the rat...

Hovstadius, Bo (2010). On drug use, multiple medication and polypharmacy in a national population. Linnaeus University Dissertations No 15/2010. ISBN: 978-9186491-20-8. Written in English. The application of multiple medications has successively increased during a number of years and has thereby increased the potential risks of adverse drug reactions, interactions and non-adherence to drug ther...

OBJECTIVE To summarise the findings of an updated Cochrane review of interventions aimed at improving the appropriate use of polypharmacy in older people. DESIGN Cochrane systematic review. Multiple electronic databases were searched including MEDLINE, EMBASE and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (from inception to November 2013). Hand searching of references was also perform...

BACKGROUND The analysis of prescribing patterns in entire catchment areas contributes to global mapping of the use of antipsychotics and may improve treatment outcomes. OBJECTIVE To determine the pattern of long-term antipsychotic prescription in outpatients with schizophrenia in the province of Tarragona (Catalonia-Spain). METHODS A naturalistic, observational, retrospective, non-intervent...

BACKGROUND Polypharmacy, potentially inappropriate medications and anticholinergic burden (as assessed by the anticholinergic risk scale) are commonly used as quality indicators of pharmacotherapy in older adults. However, their role in clinical practice is undefined. We sought to investigate longitudinal changes in these indicators and their effects on clinical outcomes. METHODS We used Taiw...

A retrospective survey of 50 adult epileptic outpatients who were taking two anticonvulsants drugs showed that seizure control had improved in the six months after the introduction of the second drug in only 36%. When blood concentrations of the two anticonvulsants were subsequently measured improvement in seizure control was found to be significantly related to the presence of optimum blood co...

The increase in the elderly population is a factor that occurs worldwide. This fact can be explained by the improvement of living conditions of the populations, advances in medicine, improved sanitation and increase in the community and individual health care. The use of several drugs, self-medication, drug side effects, several drug interactions and decreased quality of life of the population ...

BACKGROUND To establish the prevalence of metabolic syndrome and its parameters in group of patients with schizophrenia in polypharmacy - receiving first generation antipsychotics versus clozapine alone treated group. SUBJECTS AND METHODS 48 outpatients with schizophrenia divided into two groups: the first group of 21 patients in polypharmacy with first generation antipsychotics, and the seco...

BACKGROUND Antipsychotic monotherapy or polypharmacy (concurrent use of two or more antipsychotics) are used for treating patients with psychiatric disorders (PDs). Usually, antipsychotic monotherapy has a lower cost than polypharmacy. This study aimed to predict the cost of antipsychotic medications (AM) of psychiatric patients in Iran. MATERIALS AND METHODS For this purpose, 790 patients wi...

Background. Geriatric syndromes (GS) exhibit high prevalence in patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) under chronic dialysis irrespective of age. We sought to determine whether GS influences medication adherence in ESRD patients. Methods. A prospective cohort of chronic dialysis patients was assembled. The presence of GS components, including frailty/prefrailty, polypharmacy, and malnutr...