Antipsychotic prescribing: national findings of children and adolescents attending mental health services in Ireland

We described the frequency of antipsychotic medication, medication type, target condition, target symptom and medication doses. We used multivariable logistic regression, adjusted with available co-variates to assess the association of being presc ribed an antipsychotic medication. Twelve percentage (n = 437) were prescribed an antipsychotic and 16–17-years (n = 211, 48.3%) was the most common age category. The commonest reason for prescribing an antipsychotic was target symptoms (i.e., off-label use) (n = 329; 75.%) and of thes e symptoms, agitation (n = 77/329; 25%) and irritability (56/239; 25%) were the most common. Quetiapine (n = 127; 29%) was the most common antipsychotic, followed by risperidone (n = 125; 28.6%), aripiprazole (n = 107; 24.5%), and olanzapine (n = 66; 15.1%). In adjusted analysis, having a psychotic disorder ((adjusted-odds-ratio) aOR: 39.63, CI 95%, 13.40–117.22), bipolar disorder (aOR: 16.96, CI 95%, 3.60–80.00), autism spectrum disorder (aOR: 3.24, CI 95%, 2.45–4.28) or aggression symptoms (aOR: 16.75, CI 95%, 7.22–38.89) was associated with prescribing an antipsy chotic medication. This is the first study in children and adolescents that describes the target conditions and target symptoms for antipsychotic use in Ireland. Our results show a high proportion of antipsychotic prescribing based on target symptoms rather than target condition or diagnosis.
Source: European Child and Adolescent Psychiatry - Category: Psychiatry Source Type: research