of Public Health Psychotropic drugs, which include antipsychotics, anxiolytics, hypnotics, and antidepressants, are commonly utilised among the elderly. However, drug utilisation in this population is complex due to multiple morbidities, extensive drug utilisation and an increased sensitivity to drugs. Inappropriate utilisation of drugs among the elderly is an issue of great public health impor...

OBJECTIVE to compare psychotropic prescribing in older people with dementia and the general elderly population. DESIGN AND SETTING retrospective population database study in 315 General Practices. SUBJECTS there were 271,365 patients aged > or = 65, of which 10,058 (3.7%) recorded as having dementia. METHODS epidemiology of psychotropic prescribing in older people with and without dementi...

BACKGROUND Mental disorders among older adults are mainly treated with psychotropic drugs. Few of these drugs are, however, prescribed by specialized geriatricians or psychiatrists, but rather from general practitioners (GPs). Socioeconomic inequalities in access to specialist prescribing have been found in younger age groups. Hence, we aimed to investigate whether there are socioeconomic diffe...

OBJECTIVE To examine trends in psychotropic medication utilization and costs for children and adolescents between January 1, 1997, and December 31, 2000. METHODS Pharmacy claims were analyzed for mental health users 17 years and younger (N = 83 039) from a national database covering 1.74 million privately insured youths. Utilization rates and costs for dispensed medications were compared acro...

Psychiatric disorders are among the most debilitating of all medical illnesses. Whilst there are drugs that can be used to treat these disorders, they give sub-optimal recovery in many people and a significant number of individuals do not respond to any treatments and remain treatment resistant. Surprisingly, the mechanism by which psychotropic drugs cause their therapeutic benefits remain unkn...

OBJECTIVE This study investigated the prescription patterns for Korean patients with schizophrenia with a particular focus on antipsychotic polypharmacy. All data were gathered from patients presenting at 41 tertiary university hospitals and 8 secondary hospitals. METHODS Data from three multicenter studies conducted in Korea were retrospectively reviewed and integrated to identify patients w...

BACKGROUND Most studies examining psychotropic medication use on cognition in older persons with dementia include measures of global cognitive function. The present study examined the relationship between different types of psychotropic medication and specific cognitive functions in older people with dementia. METHODS Two hundred and six institutionalized older adults with dementia (180 women...

The approval of psychotropic drugs with novel mechanisms of action has been rare in recent years. To address this issue, further analysis of the pathophysiology of neuropsychiatric disorders is essential for identifying new pharmacological targets for psychotropic medications. In this report, we detail drug candidates being examined as treatments for psychiatric disorders. Particular emphasis i...

According to the National Institute of Statistics, Geography and Computer Sciences (INEGI, Spanish acronym), in 2003, the method employed in suicide attempts was mostly drug ingestion. The ratio of adolescent boys and girls between 10 and 14 years old involved in suicide attempt is 1:1.3, while the ration of those in the same age range that successfully committed the suicide was 5 males:1 femal...

OBJECTIVES The study sought to describe whether psychotropic medication may have long-term side effects in patients with stroke compared with controls. SETTING Use of national register data from healthcare services were identified from the Danish National Patient Registry in Denmark. Information about psychotropic medication use was obtained from the Danish Register of Medicinal Product Stati...