ArticleBMJ mental health2025
Co-prescription of metformin and antipsychotics in severe mental illness: a UK primary care cohort study.
Article in BMJ mental health, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundMetformin is a pharmacological candidate to mitigate second-generation antipsychotic (SGA)-induced weight gain in patients diagnosed with severe mental illnesses (SMI).
objectiveTo determine the incidence, prevalence and demographic patterns of metformin co-prescription among patients diagnosed with SMI initiating SGAs. To estimate the impact of metformin co-prescription on weight over 2 years post-SGA initiation.
methodsA cohort study of patients diagnosed with SMI initiating aripiprazole, olanzapine, quetiapine or risperidone in 2005-2019 using primary care data from Clinical Practice Research Datalink. We estimated cumulative incidence and period prevalences of co-prescription and explored prescribing differences by demographic and clinical factors. We compared weight change among patients prescribed an SGA-only versus an SGA plus metformin, accounting for confounders using linear regression.
findingsAmong 26 537 patients initiating SGAs, 4652 were ever prescribed metformin and 21 885 were not. The two-year incidence of first metformin prescription was 3.3%. The SGA plus metformin group were more ethnically diverse, had greater social deprivation, more comorbidities and higher baseline weight (mean 90.4 vs 76.8 kg). By 2 years post-SGA initiation, mean weight in the SGA-only group had changed by +4.16% (95% CI -1.26 to +9.58) compared with -0.65% (95% CI -4.26 to +2.96) in the SGA plus metformin group. After confounder adjustment, the 2-year mean difference in weight with metformin co-prescription was -1.48 kg (95% CI -4.03 to 1.07) among females and -1.84 kg (95% CI -4.67 to 0.98) among males.
conclusionMetformin is infrequently co-prescribed, despite apparent efficacy and guidelines. CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS: Primary and secondary care collaboration should be strengthened and barriers to co-prescribing addressed.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.