Wide Racial and Geographic Disparities Found in Clozapine and LAI Prescriptions

Regional and racial variations in the prescribing of psychotropic medications to patients with schizophrenia may underlie some of the health inequities associated with these disorders, reports astudyin Psychiatric Services in Advance.“The most dramatic interstate differences were in prescription of clozapine and LAIs [long-acting injectable antipsychotics], which have distinctive roles in medication management,” wrote Natalie Bareis, L.M.S.W., Ph.D., of Columbia University and colleagues. “[C]lozapine has efficacy in manag ing treatment-resistant schizophrenia and reducing suicidal behaviors and has low rates of prescription by clinicians, and LAI medications address nonadherence, but they require clinician administration and pose risks for coercion.”Specifically, non-Hispanic Blacks and people of other race-ethnic groups were more likely than non-Hispanic Whites to fill prescriptions for LAIs, whereas non-Hispanic Whites were more likely than all other groups to fill prescriptions for clozapine.Bareis and colleagues used the national Medicaid Analytic eXtract databases to compile data on adults aged 18 to 64 who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder in 2011 and filled at least one 15-day prescription for an oral antipsychotic, antidepressant, benzodiazepine, or mood stabilizer or one prescription for an injectable LAI in 2012. Their sample included 357,914 adults from 47 states plus the District of Columbia (Hawaii, Idaho, and Maine had mi...
Source: Psychiatr News - Category: Psychiatry Tags: clozapine health care inequities LAIs Natalie Bareis psychotropic medications schizophrenia Source Type: research