Information services provider Thomson Reuters, US, has announced that it has conducted a study that outlines the medical conditions that US physicians reported treating with psychiatric drugs. The research, sponsored by the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), was published in the journal CNS Drugs.
According to Thomson, psychiatric medications are one of the most widely prescribed categories of drugs in the US, but few studies have comprehensively examined the types of illnesses being treated with these medications. There has been a great deal of interest and some concern about the ‘off-label’ use of psychiatric drugs - that is, their use for medical conditions not included in their Food and Drug Administration-approved labeling. In most instances it is legal and a common practice for physicians to prescribe drugs off-label, even though less may be known about a drug’s risks and benefits for an unapproved indication.
The new study did not evaluate whether drugs were prescribed for on- or off-label use, but it reveals that in the vast majority of cases physicians are prescribing psychiatric medications for patients with psychiatric conditions. These medications — especially anti-anxiety drugs — are also sometimes prescribed to treat other conditions.
The study analysed data from the 2005 National Disease and Therapeutic Index, a nationally representative survey of about 4,000 US office-based physicians conducted by IMS Health. It looked at the prescription patterns for three major types of psychiatric drugs: antipsychotic drugs, antidepressant drugs, and anti-anxiety drugs, but did not evaluate clinical appropriateness per se. It is expected that the information presented in the study will serve as a guide to future research, policy and education about these medications, their perceived benefits and risks, and their uses.
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