Psychiatric Disorders: Prescribing Patterns, Cost of Antipsychotics and Prevalence Trend from Past to Present

Objective: To study the prevalence of various psychiatric disorders, compile and compare the data with a previous study and to examine the prescribing pattern of antipsychotics in schizophrenic patients in a psychiatric clinic and to evaluate the annual expenditure.
Method: For our practical survey, we visited a psychiatric clinic, from where we gathered information about the prevalence of patients prescribing and cost of therapy with various psychiatric disorders over a duration of one year (2011) visiting that particular clinic, compared with unpublished data of a survey carried out in a similar fashion during the year 2004.
Results:The prevalence of various psychiatric disorders was almost in similar pattern with Schizophrenia in the top, followed by depression and anxiety in decreasing order. The most affected age group was found to be 21-30yrs in both the years of survey. A total of 241 prescriptions containing 485 items were collected. Antipsychotic drugs accounted for 52% usage. Typical antipsychotics were used in all prescriptions. Benzodiazepines were widely prescribed along with antipsychotics and accounted for 27% of the prescriptions.
Conclusion: Based on the survey carried out, in 650 patients (in the year 2004) and 520 patients (in the year 2011), the prevalence of various psychiatric disorders was almost in similar pattern with Schizophrenia in the top, followed by depression. The use of typical antipsychotics followed by benzodiazepines accounted for most of the drug usage in this study, the addition of benzodiazepines in the prescription increased the annual treatment expenditure.

Author(s): Sabbani Pradeep kumar, Nazia Yasmeen, Dr. Yerram Sreedhar raju, Surampalli Gurunath, and Prathibha Duvvala

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