Antipsychotic Polypharmacy May Reduce Long-Term Rehospitalization Risk, Study Finds

In this study on the long-term use of antipsychotic polypharmacy in schizophrenia, researchers examined seven monotherapies and 22 antipsychotic combinations, excluding polypharmacy periods shorter than 90 days.Researchers analyzed data on all Finnish patients with schizophrenia treated in an inpatient setting from 1972 to 2014, and the 62,250 patients were followed for a median of 14 years, with researchers pulling data on their dispensation of antipsychotic medication. The primary outcomes studied were the number of psychiatric rehospitalizations, with hospitalizations due to physical illnesses and deaths serving as secondary outcomes.During that time 58% of participants were readmitted for psychiatric inpatient care.The study findings include the following: Nearly 60% of participants used antipsychotic polypharmacy for at least 90 days. This practice was associated with a 13% lower risk of psychiatric rehospitalization compared with monotherapy. The treatment associated with the best outcome in terms of psychiatric or all-cause hospitalization was clozapine plus aripiprazole. Patients taking this combination had a 14% lower risk of psychiatric rehospitalization than those taking clozapine alone, which was the monotherapy associated with the best outcome. The advantage of the clozapine plus aripiprazole combination was greater for patients with first-episode schizophrenia, who were 23% less likely to be rehospitalized than other patients with first-episode schizophrenia.Amo...

Source: Psychiatr News - February 21, 2019 Category: Psychiatry Tags: antipsychotics aripiprazole clozapine JAMA Psychiatry Jari Tiihonen monotherapy polypharmacy quetiapine rehospitalization schizophrenia Source Type: research