Abstract

STUCCHI-PORTOCARRERO, Santiago  and  SAAVEDRA, Javier E. Psychiatric polypharmacy in people with schizophrenia in a public mental health facility in Lima. Rev Neuropsiquiatr [online]. 2018, vol.81, n.3, pp.145-153. ISSN 0034-8597.  http://dx.doi.org/https://doi.org/10.20453/rnp.v81i3.3382.

Objectives: The present study attempts to identify retrospectively the prevalence of psychiatric polypharmacy among patients with the diagnosis of schizophrenia who receive outpatient care at the National Institute of Mental Health “Honorio Delgado - Hideyo Noguchi” (Lima, Perú). Material and Methods: Four-hundred thirty clinical records of supposedly clinically stable patients with a single diagnosis of schizophrenia, which were assisted in the External Consultation of the Adult Directorate or in the Brief Intervention Module of the Institute during the year 2016, were reviewed. Results: Of the sample, 84.4 % received more than one psychotropic drug, with an average of 3.0 psychotropic drugs per patient; 40.5 % received more than one antipsychotic, with an average of 1.5 antipsychotics per patient; 96.2 % of those that received depot antipsychotics received, in addition, one or more psychiatric drugs, and 86.2 % received one or more oral antipsychotics. As additional psychiatric drugs, 50.9 % took a benzodiazepine, 47.0 % an anticholinergic, 24.4 % a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor antidepressant, and 21.2 %, at least one mood stabilizer. The number of psychotropic drugs in general and antipsychotics in particular was significantly associated with previous hospitalizations, history of electroconvulsive therapy, use of first generation antipsychotics and use of depot antipsychotics. Conclusions: A high prevalence of psychiatric polypharmacy was found in the studied population, which should motivate the revision of the clinical practice guidelines and the elaboration of norms that regulate the use of psychotropic drugs.

Keywords : Polypharmacy; psychiatric drugs; psychiatry; schizophrenia.

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