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Evaluation of Risk Factors for Antipsychotic Polypharmacy in Inpatient Psychiatry Units of a Community Hospital: A Retrospective Analysis

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Abstract

Antipsychotic polypharmacy (APP) is a common practice while treating severe mental illness but the benefits of APP over antipsychotic monotherapy is controversial. This is a retrospective analysis comparing risk factors for people on APP and those on non-APP in inpatient psychiatry units. Two years data with 72 people in non-APP group and 82 people in APP group were analyzed quantitatively. The diagnoses of schizoaffective disorder (OR 11.5), schizophrenia (OR 4.65) and depression (OR 0.31), and history of > 2 psychiatric admissions (OR 3.2) and > 2 psychiatric emergency visits (OR 2.87) in 2 years were studied as potential risk factors for APP. Similarly, history of violence (OR 1.7) and history of substance abuse (OR 0.51) were also studied. Schizophrenia spectrum disorder, higher number of psychiatric hospitalizations, and psychiatric emergency visits were positively associated while depression and substance abuse were negatively associated with APP in our study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry, Berkshire Medical Center, Pittsfield, MA, USA

    Shreedhar Paudel, Rabin Dahal, Joseph Mathias, Sushrusha Arjyal & Liliana Markovic

  2. Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA

    Shreedhar Paudel

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  1. Shreedhar Paudel
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  2. Rabin Dahal
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  3. Joseph Mathias
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  4. Sushrusha Arjyal
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  5. Liliana Markovic
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Correspondence to Shreedhar Paudel.

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None of the author has any financial disclosures to be reported and there is no conflict of interest among the authors.

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No human interaction was involved in the study as we reviewed charts of the patients included in the quality improvement project. All the study participants were deidentified before analyzing the data, and we have not included any identification parameters of any study participants in the manuscript. Because of the nature of the study, the informed consent was waived.

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Paudel, S., Dahal, R., Mathias, J. et al. Evaluation of Risk Factors for Antipsychotic Polypharmacy in Inpatient Psychiatry Units of a Community Hospital: A Retrospective Analysis. Community Ment Health J 55, 750–754 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10597-019-00381-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10597-019-00381-0

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