Antipsychotic drug use: physician prescribing practices in relation to current recommendations.

Forty-two Veterans Administration hospitals contributed data on all the psychotherapeutic drugs being prescribed for a sample of their patients. These prescriptions were compared with the recommendations in "Guidelines for Antipsychotic Drug Use" by Drs. Prien and Caffey (1975). Generally, the results showed moderate differences between the actual physician practices and those recommended in the guidelines. The most significant differences were in polypharmacy, use of antiparkinson drugs, dosage levels and "drug holidays". The use of once- or twice-a-day schedules and the administration of major portion of the dose at night were much closer to the recommendation.