Recent trends in prescribing psychotropic drugs at a psychiatric university hospital (1981-84).

Analysis of the prescribing of psychotropic drugs in the psychiatric hospital of the Free University of Berlin revealed a slight decrease in the mean number of prescriptions to our patients over recent years. As a response to intensified psychopharmacological pretreatment the proportion of patients who had initially been treated drug-free (up to the 10th day after admission) rose steadily every year. The use of neuroleptics increased significantly, mainly due to increased prescriptions of this group of compounds to endogenous depressives. The use of benzodiazepines, however, decreased in all groups of patients. Simultaneous use of neuroleptics was a clear leader in the category of drug combinations. Low-potent neuroleptics (i.e. perazine, clozapine), clomipramine, and the MAO-inhibitor tranylcypromine were preferred increasingly in recent years; reduced prescription rates were found for haloperidol, clomethiazol, and metamizol. These changes may be related to an ongoing process of reevaluating benefits and risks of available treatments. The systematic updating of prescribing patterns is an essential tool for quality control of psychiatric pharmacotherapy.