ArticleTherapeutic advances in psychopharmacology2021
Defining polypharmacy: in search of a more comprehensive determination method applied in a tertiary psychiatric hospital.
Article in Therapeutic advances in psychopharmacology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed, 9 citations in OpenAlex.
- Mechanism-Based Polypharmacy as a Repurposing Strategy: The Case of D-Cycloserine and Lurasidone.Clinical and translational science · 2026Review
- Article
- Psychiatric polypharmacy in adult patients at the only referral psychiatric institute in Botswana: A cross-sectional study.PloS one · 2026Article
- Complex Psychotropic Polypharmacy in Soweto-based community psychiatry clinics.The South African journal of psychiatry : SAJP : the journal of the Society of Psychiatrists of South Africa · 2025Article
- Mental Health Polypharmacy in "Non-Coded" Primary Care Patients: The Effect of Deprescribing.Journal of clinical medicine · 2024Article
- The Choice of Either Quetiapine or Aripiprazole as Augmentation Treatment in a European Naturalistic Sample of Patients With Major Depressive Disorder.The international journal of neuropsychopharmacology · 2022Article
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Authors and funding
9 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
aimsThis cross-sectional pharmacoepidemiologic study examined the prevalence of polypharmacy and psychotropic polypharmacy among inpatients in a tertiary psychiatric hospital in Belgium.
methodsCurrent prescriptions of all inpatients suffering from mental disorders were extracted from the hospital Computerized Physician Order Entry. Two methods were used to examine definitive polypharmacy (defined as the concomitant use of at least five medicines): number of medicines per active component and per prescription. Psychotropic polypharmacy was defined as the concomitant use of at least two psychotropic medicines, based on the first counting, i.e., per active component.
resultsIn 292 included patients, the prevalence of definitive polypharmacy was 65.8%, with a mean number of 6.8 ± 4.2 medicines per patient. The most prevalent medicines were related to the central nervous system (55.7%), followed by medicines related to the gastro-intestinal (17.6%) and cardiovascular (9.4%) systems. A prevalence of psychotropic polypharmacy of 78.1% was observed, with a mean of 3.0 ± 1.7 psychotropic medicines per patient. Psychotropic polypharmacy was classified in same-class (71.5%), multi-class (82.5%), augmentation (20.6%), and adjuvant (35.5%) polypharmacy.
conclusionThese findings are consistent with previous reports of highly prevalent polypharmacy in patients with mental disorders. Although, in some cases, polypharmacy can be an important part of good clinical practice, the high prevalence of both polypharmacy and psychotropic polypharmacy emphasizes that attention must be paid to the potentially associated risks. Consensus on the definition and method of determination of polypharmacy is needed to support further research.
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