Pattern of psychotropic medications in elderly with chronic schizophrenia

Psychotropic drugs use in the elderly with chronic schizophrenia is considered as an important issue in the field of psychiatry. The main goal of this study was to clarify the pattern of such drug use in these patients, in order to deem such therapy plan and focus on its cost attributing measures, for a more reasonable quality of care program. Methods &Materials: The study sample included 52 elderly resided at the Tehran`s Razi Mental Hospital who had chronic (more than six months) schizophrenia in the residual phase. Selected patients were taking at least two psychotropic drugs equivalent to 500 mg Chlorpromazine. We prepared the list of their drug use by obtaining their responses to our pre designed questionnaire charts. Data were collected and analyzed by SPSS version 17. In one case (1.92%), there was used for entries (Risperidone+Chlorpromazine+Fluphenazine Decanoate+Thiothixene). In 11 cases (21.2%) three entries and in 40 cases (76.8%), two entries of the psychotropic drugs were used. Chlorpromazine equivalent dose in each group ranged from the lowest dose (750 /mg) to the highest of (5600 /mg). The highest Chlorpromazine dose (5600) equivalent per milligram belonged to the four entries of(Risperidone+Chlorpromazine+Fluphenazine Decanoate and Thiothixene). The lowest Chlorpromazine dose (750/mg), was resulted in 3 entries of (Risperidone+Chlorpromazine and Fluphenazine Decanoate). At the end of the study, we found a high prevalence of using more than two psychotropic medications from the first atypical antipsychotic category. We also found, less frequent usage of the second and the third typical antipsychotic. We recommend more research to be applied for more feasible patterns of psychotropic prescriptions, with considerations of lowering the amount of medication use and deem their cost-benefits issues in elderly with chronic schizophrenia. Keywords: psychotropic drugs, chronic schizophrenia, elderly, monotherapy, polypharmacy