Prevalence of atypical antipsychotic use in psychiatric outpatients: comparison of women of childbearing age with men.

To characterize current treatment practices, we compared the use of atypical antipsychotic drugs among women of childbearing age to men based on electronic medical records of 1073 hospital-based psychiatric outpatients given at least one second-generation antipsychotic drug. One quarter of psychiatric outpatients sampled were prescribed at least one atypical antipsychotic, in more than half of cases for off-label indications. Women were significantly more likely than men to be diagnosed with mood or anxiety disorders than psychotic disorders and to be prescribed quetiapine (60.7 vs. 48.0 %) or aripiprazole (31.2 vs. 23.9 %), but less likely risperidone (15.8 vs. 26.1 %) or ziprasidone (10 vs. 14 %).