Abstract

Despite an increasing concern that atypical antipsychotics seem to have a stronger diabetogenic risk than conventional antipsychotics, little information is available on the prevalence of diabetes among schizophrenia patients, and prescription patterns for patients with comorbid schizophrenia and diabetes in Japan.To compare the prevalence of diabetes between schizophrenia patients and the general population and to investigate whether diabetes status correlates the prescription patterns of antipsychotics at hospital discharge.Schizophrenia patients who were discharged between April 2004 and March 2005 and who continued to receive outpatient treatment from 526 hospitals were included in this retrospective open cohort study. We collected information about the doctor diagnosis of diabetes during hospitalization, and drug prescriptions for schizophrenia at hospital discharge using medical charts.The overall prevalence of diabetes was 8.6% among patients with schizophrenia. Compared with the general population, the estimates of diabetes prevalence in the schizophrenia population were 2.6–10.8 percentage point higher among males aged 30–49 years, and 1.9–9.9 percentage point higher among females aged 40–59 years. The odds of being prescribed conventional antipsychotics were about 2 times higher among patients with diabetes than without diabetes, relative to atypical and combination of conventional and atypical antipsychotics. These results were robust across various sensitivity analyses.When treating schizophrenia patients with preexisting diabetes, psychiatrists need to monitor the occurrence of diabetes regularly regardless of antipsychotic class, strike a balance, and provide the most efficacious antipsychotic medication.

Full Text
Paper version not known

Talk to us

Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have

Schedule a call

Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.