Datapoints: Antipsychotic Polypharmacy in the Ambulatory Care Setting, 1993-2000

Identifying Clinically Questionable Psychotropic Prescribing Practices for Medicaid Recipients in New York State

“…Rates of polypharmacy were consistent with rates previously reported (10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16). Other than in limited situations involving clozapine (17,18), evidence for the effectiveness of polypharmacy is weak and inconsistent.…”

Association of antipsychotic polypharmacy with health service cost: a register-based cost analysis

“…The recent rise in antipsychotic polypharmacy with prevalence rates reaching 50% [4][5][6][7][8] has fuelled a growing concern because substantial evidence of superior efficacy compared with antipsychotic monotherapy is lacking. Furthermore, antipsychotic polypharmacy is associated with increased frequency of side effects, interactions, medication errors and reduced compliance [9][10][11].…”

Observational Study on Medications Prescribed to Dual-Diagnosis Outpatients

“…Polypharmacy is not exclusive to dual-diagnosis patients and is common in singly occurring mental disorders (Preskorn and Lacey, 2007;Mojtabai and Olfson, 2010) such as those with substance abuse disorders (particularly alcohol and opioids) (Welsh and Liberto, 2001), and patients with psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia (Freudenreich and Goff, 2002;Botts et al, 2003;Ganguly et al, 2004), schizoaffective disorder (Clark et al, 2002), or affective disorders (Frye et al, 2000) such as major depression (Glezer et al, 2009) or bipolar disorder (Bauer et al, 2010).…”