Treatment patterns of antipsychotics and clinical features for treating patients with schizophrenia at the teaching hospital in Jakarta, Indonesia

Abstract

Antipsychotics are a group of psychotropic drugs used as the mainstay treatment for schizophrenia. In Indonesia, studies on the pattern of drug use are still limited, particularly about the rational use of antipsychotics for schizophrenic patients. This study was aimed to discuss the treatment patterns of antipsychotics and clinical features of inpatients with schizophrenia. This retrospective study was conducted at the psychiatric ward of a tertiary hospital in Jakarta, Indonesia. The medical records of the inpatients in a year period were recorded. The evaluation of rational use of antipsychotics was assessed using clinical pathway in the hospital and some international guidelines. The data were documented by using specific forms for the sake of this study. In this study, of the 113 analyzed patients, the most common type of schizophrenia was paranoid, while the common antipsychotics were risperidone (63.7%), haloperidol (20.4%), and quetiapine (19.5%). Surprisingly, we found that 73.4% of patients met one or more criteria of inappropriateness treatment and majority cause of inappropriateness were inappropriate indication (41.6%). In this study, we find out that schizophrenia inpatients were administered to a large number of inappropriate treatments. Knowledge regarding the implementation of clinical pharmacology contributions to the psychiatrists might improve the prescription's pattern.