Summary
Data from 111,346 patients with dementia but without a concomitant diagnosis of psychosis indicates that prescribing of certain categories of antipsychotic drugs did reduce from 8.9% in 2001 to 1.4% in 2014.
At face value, this reduction in inappropriate prescribing of antipsychotic drugs to older people diagnosed with dementia appears notably impressive. In fact, the figures mentioned above refers to the use of older “first-generation” antipsychotic drugs (the use of which might have been expected to decline in any case), whereas there was little or no detectable change in the use of second-generation antipsychotic drugs.
“Since 2013, the decreasing trend in second-generation antipsychotic drug prescribing has plateaued… ”.
The authors recommend continued / increased surveillance of the effect (or the lack of it) of policy interventions intended to minimise inappropriate prescribing of antipsychotic drugs for patients with BPSD.
Reference
Stocks, SJ. Kontopantelis, E. [and] Webb, RT. [et al] (2017). Antipsychotic prescribing to patients diagnosed with dementia without a diagnosis of psychosis in the context of national guidance and drug safety warnings: longitudinal study in UK general practice. Drug Safety. August 2017; 40(8): 679-692.
