[Antipsychotic polypharmacy in high-utilising patients with schizophrenia].

OBJECTIVES: Although guidelines usually recommend monotherapy, in clinical practice, antipsychotic polypharmacy is common especially with chronically ill patients. We therefore assessed the current practice of antipsychotic polypharmacy in "high-utilising" patients with schizophrenia in Germany.
METHODS: Antipsychotic medication was assessed using a representative sample of 638 patients with schizophrenia from two multi-centre studies.
RESULTS: Antipsychotic combination treatment was administered to 43.9 % of the patients. Combination treatment not including clozapine was apparent in 36.2 %.
CONCLUSIONS: Antipsychotic polypharmacy is prevalent in the treatment of patients with schizophrenia showing high service use also when excluding such combinations with clozapine. Differences between the study samples indicate possible influences linked with therapy resistance or treatment setting. © Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York.