Therapeutic drug monitoring: perspectives of psychiatrists in Turkey.
OBJECTIVES
Although the medical and economic implications of therapeutic drug monitoring have been intensely discussed over the past years, little is known about the experiences and attitudes of psychiatrists in their clinical practice. The aim of this study was to investigate psychiatrists' daily practice with therapeutic drug monitoring in Turkey.


METHODS
A nation-wide cross-sectional survey among adult and child psychiatry specialist psychiatrists in Turkey was conducted.


RESULTS
We found that 98.4% (n = 380) of the study participants used TDM in clinical practice and 1.6% (n = 6) did not. However, TDM use is limited to mood stabilizers (lithium 96.3%, valproate 97.6%) to a great extent. Only a small number of psychiatrists perform TDM for other psychotropic drugs, e.g., clozapine 2.4%, tricyclic antidepressants 1.3%, benzodiazepines 1.1%, and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors 0,8%.


CONCLUSIONS
Most of the psychiatrists in Turkey have a positive attitude toward use of therapeutic drug monitoring although there is also a considerable difficulty to reach services for the therapeutic drug monitoring of psychotropics other than mood stabilizers.
['Eryılmaz|Gul|G|', 'Hızlı Sayar|Gökben|G|', 'Gül|Işıl Göğcegöz|IG|', 'Noyan|Cemal Onur|CO|', 'Özten|Eylem|E|', 'Darçın|Aslı Enes|AE|', 'Yorbik|Özgür|Ö|', 'Dilbaz|Nesrin|N|']
D000328:Adult D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies D016903:Drug Monitoring D006801:Humans D011570:Psychiatry D011619:Psychotropic Drugs D014421:Turkey D055815:Young Adult
therapeutic drug monitoring Psychiatrists survey psychotropic