Abstract
Aims and methodTo describe the psychotropic medication given to 332 patients admitted consecutively to seven English psychiatric intensive care units (PICUs) by prospective, multicentre case-note analysis.ResultsOverall, 104 (32%) patients received rapid tranquillisation or zuclopenthixol acetate by intramuscular injection; 72 (23%) received more than one regular antipsychotic drug simultaneously. It was reported that 20 patients received high-dose antipsychotic medication, which was probably an underestimate. The use of these interventions varied significantly between different units.Clinical implicationsPotentially risky treatments such as forcible intramuscular medication are a standard part of PICU activity. Further work is needed to clarify the reasons behind the differences in prescribing practices between different PICUs.
Highlights
This paper aims to provide such reference data by describing the drug treatments given to 332 patients consecutively admitted to seven English Psychiatric intensive care units (PICUs)
Data were collected on 332 consecutive admissions to seven different PICUs between 1 February 2006 and 30 September 2007
Three data-sets were missed in patients with brief PICU stays and one unit (D) failed to record Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS) scores on 29 patients
Summary
Anonymised data were collected prospectively on 332 patients admitted consecutively to seven English PICUs between February 2006 and August 2007. Patients and data collection procedure are described by Brown et al.[3] Data on class of medication administered, route of administration and total dose were collected by staff working on the units and recorded on a semistructured collection sheet, developed by a steering group of representatives from each participating unit and piloted on one of the units. All numbers refer to drugs recorded on the patient’s drug chart as having been administered. The research and development coordinator at the lead site advised that the project represented service evaluation rather than research and did not require research ethical committee approval. The study protocol was approved by appropriate local audit committees
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