Psychiatry Research EG

Polypharmacy refers to concurrent use of multiple medications in a single patient. Traditionally, polypharmacy has a negative connotation, implying an inappropriate or irrational use of multiple medications. However, the use of multiple medications can sometimes be an effective clinical intervention. There has been an upsurge of interest in polypharmacy in the field of psychiatry as reflected by many front page articles in different journals, as well as an entire book by Ghaemi [1] devoted to this subject. The concurrent use of multiple psychoactive medications in a single patient is an increasingly common and debatable contemporary practice in clinical psychiatry [2–4]. In addition, polypharmacy is strongly associated with excessive dosing [5]. Concerns with regard to the effect of polypharmacy include the possibility of cumulative toxicity and risk of adverse interaction; increased vulnerability to unanticipated adverse events, compliance issues, and the problem of increase drug costs justify the need to rationalize the prescription of these expensive and potentially dangerous drugs [6]. In this study, the term polypharmacy will be used for polypsychopharmacy. In Kuwait, the introduction of new, expensive psychiatric agents and the continuous criticism by the media and the lay press of prescription abuse are rational grounds for the need to evaluate the actual practices in the psychiatric field. There are few data on prescribing psychotropic medication in Kuwait. Only one study published on polypharmacy among psychiatric inpatients in 1992 [7] showed that more than 90% of psychiatric inpatients received two psychotropic drugs simultaneously. Many attempts have been made to improve prescribing patterns in psychiatric patients since new prescribing guidelines have been introduced; however, there is a need to investigate current practices of psychotropic prescription for psychiatric patients.