Socio demographic profile and utilization pattern of antipsychotic drugs among schizophrenic inpatients: a cross sectional study from western region of Nepal

BACKGROUND: Currently a large number of atypical antipsychotics available in the market are endorsed as better option for treating schizophrenia than the typical antipsychotics. Information regarding the utilization pattern of antipsychotic drugs is lacking in Nepalese population particularly in Western Nepal. By means of this study one is expected to acquire an idea concerning clinician’s preference to the antipsychotic drugs in actual clinical setup. The main objective of the study was to find the commonest antipsychotics prescribed in a tertiary care center among hospitalized patients in Western Nepal. METHODS: This cross sectional study was carried out between 1st January 2009 and 31th December 2010 at Manipal Teaching Hospital, Nepal. The diagnosis of schizophrenia was based on ICD-10 (Tenth revision).The main outcome variables of the study was commonest antipsychotic drug prescribed. Z test, Chi square test and logistic regression were used for analytical purpose. P-value < 0.05 was considered to be statistically significant. This is the first study done on the utilization pattern of antipsychotics drugs among hospitalized patients in Nepal. RESULTS: Out of 210 cases of schizophrenia, most of the patients were less than 40 yrs. 78.6%, male 61.9%, unemployed 86.7% and having their monthly income less than NPR 10000 /month 80.5%. As far as religion, 78.1% patients were the Hindus and ethnically schizophrenia was common among the Dalit 26.2%. The study revealed that 46.2% of patients were students followed by 25.2% of housewives. Olanzapine was the commonest antipsychotic drug to be prescribed 34.3%. It was observed that the psychiatrists had a tendency of using antipsychotic drugs by trade names [OR 3.3 (1.407, 8.031)] in male patients as compared to female patients. CONCLUSION: According to the utilization pattern of antipsychotics, it is concluded that atypical antipsychotics were used relatively more commonly than that of typical antipsychotics. Among the atypical antipsychotic drugs, there is a trend of using Olanzapine during Schizophrenia as compared to other atypical antipsychotic drugs in Western Nepal.