Psychiatric drugs over-used?

Friday December 19th, 2014

Powerful psychiatric drugs are mainly being used for common mental illnesses – often for elderly patients, researchers say today.

The anti-psychotic drugs are mostly licensed for serious mental illnesses – but they are widely used “off label” to help elderly people with problems such as dementia and anxiety.

Experts say the extensive use of the drugs raises the risk of patients suffering “potentially serious side-effects.”

Psychiatrist Professor David Osborn, of University College, London, UK, analysed general practice prescribing of first and second generation anti-psychotics for a report in The BMJ.

He found that 48,000 people were prescribed these drugs between 2007 and 2011 – and more than half of them were given second generation antipsychotics.

The study found that fewer than half of those given first generation drugs suffered from a psychotic illness or bipolar disorder.

Just one third of those given one second generation drug, quetiapine, had one of these disorders.

About 60% of those prescribed another second generation drug, olanzapine, had one of these disorders.

Professor Osborn found that the drugs were often prescribed for anxiety, depression, dementia, sleep and personality disorders.

He says the second generation drugs should not be used for dementia because of increased risk of stroke and death.

He writes: “Our findings suggest that further effort is required to decrease primary care antipsychotic prescriptions in dementia, and that assessing time trends in antipsychotic prescribing in this group is an important area for future research.”

Prescribing of antipsychotics in UK primary care: a cohort study BMJ 19 December 2014; doi 10.1136/bmjopen-2014-006135 [abstract]

Tags: Elderly Health | Mental Health | NHS | Pharmaceuticals | UK News

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