Risk of dyslipidaemia with antipsychotic drug treatment in Chinese inpatients with mental illness: a hospital-based cohort study

OBJECTIVES: To determine the association of long-term use of antipsychotics with the risk of dyslipidaemia. DESIGN: A hospital-based cohort study. SETTING: Electronic health record data of adult mental health inpatients in all 19 specialised psychiatric hospitals in Beijing from 1 January 2005 to 31 December 2018 was obtained. PARTICIPANTS: Participants were inpatients aged 18 years or older with at least two admissions, excluding those with diagnosed dyslipidaemia and fatty liver at the first admission. We included 22 329 adult inpatients with no dyslipidaemia and fatty liver at baseline. The exposure was antipsychotics use, defined as antipsychotics prescription in the treatment procedures of medical record preceding dyslipidaemia diagnosis during the follow-up period. 15 930 (71.34%) had antipsychotics use, and 6399 (28.66%) never had antipsychotics use. We used the length of follow-up as proxy for the duration of antipsychotics exposure. PRIMARY OUTCOME MEASURES: The primary outcome was newly recorded dyslipidaemia defined by International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision codes. RESULTS: 4069 inpatients had newly recorded dyslipidaemia during 73 418.07 person-years, the incidence rate was 5.54 per 100 person-years. The incidence rate was 7.22 per 100 person-years in the exposed group and 3.43 per 100 person-years in the unexposed group. Results of multivariate analysis showed that antipsychotics use was associated with higher risk of dyslipidaemia (adjusted HR, aHR 2.41, 95% CI 2.24 to 2.59, p<0.001), regardless of the duration of antipsychotics use. Inpatients aged 18–29 years had higher risk of dyslipidaemia (aHR 3.38, 95% CI 2.77 to 4.12, p=0.004) than those in other age groups. Inpatients without hypertension had substantially higher risk of dyslipidaemia after antipsychotic exposure. CONCLUSIONS: Both short-term and long-term antipsychotics use was associated with higher risk of dyslipidaemia among Chinese inpatients with mental illness. Dyslipidaemia was especially prominent in young patients and those without hypertension.