Longitudinal assessment of psychotropic drug use in acutely-ill XXXX inpatients.

@entity1 @entity146 @entity1245 @entity1091 @entity22292
Psychotropic drug surveys serve to provide retrospective control of actual treatment conditions in @entity146 hospitals. Data of overall drug consumptions and those indicating the time pattern of medication were recorded at 7 census days for 1,415 inpatients of the @entity146 hospital of the Free University of Berlin. Drug-treated @entity1 with 3.15 different psychotropic drugs on average during their stay. Neuroleptics were the most chosen compound group with regard to all @entity1 treated (62.2%), the number of prescriptions (48.3%) and the sum of psychotropic days (57.9%). Sedatives (i.e. @entity1245 and @entity22292 ) were given to more patients than antidepressants (41.0% vs. 29.3%), but accounted for only 5.7% of all psychotropic drug days (21.4% in case of antidepressants). The analysis of time pattern revealed that the prescription of neuroleptics was favoured on all census days, while prescribing for antiparkinsonian and @entity1091 drugs increased also over time, but not for sedatives. Mean daily doses of most neuroleptics peaked near the 10th day after the @entity1 ' admission, while those of antidepressants increased steadily until the @entity1 were discharged. Monotherapy was found in 59.0%, drug combinations in 41.0% of prescriptions (on all census days). The proportion of drug combinations in relation to monotherapy increased the longer the @entity1 were in hospital. Among all drug combinations, two drugs had been combined in 79.2%, three or more in 20.8%. Two or more neuroleptics given simultaneously were involved in 44.9% of all combinations--an unexpected finding calling for more systematic investigation.
