Psychotropic prescribing rates and pharmacogenomic testing implications for autism in the Canadian primary care sentinel surveillance network.

Abstract

To estimate prescribing rates of psychotropic drugs to individuals with autism and the proportion of these individuals who could benefit from pharmacogenetic testing. Prescribing data for 92 psychotropic drugs, including 31 antidepressants, 22 antipsychotics, 14 mood stabilizer/antiepileptics, 17 anxiolytic/hypnotics and eight antiadrenergic/psychostimulant were retrieved from medical records of 787 (613 males) autistic individuals who sought treatment from a primary care office enrolled in the Canadian Primary Care Sentinel Surveillance Network between 2012 and 2014. Each prescribed drug was cross-referenced with pharmacogenomic-based prescribing guidelines published by the Clinical Pharmacogenetics Implementation Consortium, the Dutch Pharmacogenetics Working Group, and the Canadian Pharmacogenomics Network for Drug Safety. More than half (58%) of the participants were prescribed a psychotropic drug and 37% were prescribed two or more psychotropic drugs concurrently. Among the 83 psychotropic drugs examined, 54 (65%) were prescribed to one or more participants during the study's observation period. The ten most frequently prescribed psychotropics were methylphenidate (16.3%), risperidone (12.8%), lorazepam (12.1%), fluoxetine (7.9%), sertraline (7.1%), quetiapine (6.9%), aripiprazole (6.1%), lisdexamfetamine (5.8%), citalopram (5.6%) and clonazepam (4.8%). Seventeen (32%) of the 54 psychotropic drugs prescribed were linked to a pharmacogenomic-based prescribing guideline, including risperidone, sertraline, aripiprazole and citalopram. Our findings suggest primary care providers in Canada prescribe a wide range of psychotropics to their patients with autism, some of which may benefit from the integration of pharmacogenomic information into their treatment planning.