Polypharmacy and psychosis

In psychiatry, polypharmacy (people being described more than one drug) is more the rule than the exception. A German study of 429 people attending a psychiatric outpatient care unit looked into which people were being prescribed drugs for which conditions and how many of them were being prescribed more than one drug. Patients with an initial diagnosis of schizophrenic psychosis were most frequently treated, followed by patients with affective (mood) disorders. 57% of the patients received at least one psychotropic drug, 20% receiving one drug and the remainder more than one. People with schizophrenic psychosis most frequently received a combination therapy, followed by patients with affective disorders. Atypical, antipsychotic drugs were most often prescribed.

Bruggemann, Bernd R., Elgeti, Hermann and Ziegenbein, Marc - Patterns of drug prescription in a psychiatric outpatient care unit: the issue of polypharmacy German Journal of Psychiatry 2008, 11, 1-6