A prescription survey of antipsychotic use in England and Wales following the introduction of NICE guidance.

Objective : In the United Kingdom (UK) the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) has recommended the use of atypical antipsychotics for the treatment of schizophrenia. As part of its guidance it discourages the concurrent use of typical and atypical antipsychotics. In previous prescribing surveys antipsychotic polypharmacy has been noted to be widespread. We sought to evaluate atypical antipsychotic prescribing after the publication of NICE guidance. Method : We invited psychiatric centres in England and Wales to participate, in March 2004, in an atypical antipsychotic prescribing survey of hospital in-patients. Results : Thirty-six in-patient units submitted data for 2012 patients. After exclusions, 1092 patients were eligible. Of these, 28.6% (312) were prescribed a typical alongside an atypical antipsychotic and 19.3% (211) were prescribed high-dose antipsychotics. Co-prescription was more prevalent in patients aged 40 years and above (32.0 vs. 25.3%; P=0.018). It was also noted that in centres employing senior pharmacists, co-prescription was more common (28.6 vs. 14.3%; P=0.03). High-dose treatment was more commonly observed in patients of a white ethnic background (20.6 vs. 13.9%; P=0.02) as well as in patients aged 40 years and above (24.4 vs. 15.0%; P<0.001). Prescription of anticholinergics was significantly more prevalent in those receiving atypical and typical combinations than atypicals alone (26.0 vs. 12.0%; P<0.001). Conclusions : Antipsychotic polypharmacy remains commonplace. Similarly the prescription of high-dose antipsychotics is also widespread.