Title:Outpatient Psychotropic Drug Interactions in a Public Psychiatry Hospital
in Bahrain: An Audit Study
Volume: 11
Author(s): Yasin Tayem*, Saeed Aljaberi, Ali Alfehaid, Abdulaziz Almekhyal, Haitham Jahrami, Mazen Ali and Suhaib Hattab
Affiliation:
- Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, College of Medicine and Medical Sciences, Arabian Gulf University,
Manama, Kingdom of Bahrain
Keywords:
Drug-drug interactions, polypharmacy, psychotropic drugs, plasma level, schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder.
Abstract:
Background: Psychotropic polypharmacy is particularly common, which puts psychiatric
patients at high risk for developing drug-drug interactions.
Objective: We aimed to study potential interactions between psychotropic medications prescribed
within the outpatient psychiatry setting.
Methods: This was an audit study, which targeted a sample of outpatient prescriptions ordered
within the outpatient clinics of the main psychiatry hospital in Bahrain over 2017. We studied the
grades and correlates of interactions between psychotropic drugs.
Results: The total number of prescriptions in our sample was 992 (56.1% males, 43.9% females).
Psychotropic polypharmacy was detected in 842 prescriptions (84.9%). Potential interactions between
psychotropic drugs were observed in 550 prescriptions (56.4%). The degree of interaction
was minor in 43 prescriptions (7.8%), significant in 419 prescriptions (76.2%), and serious in 88
prescriptions (16%). Schizoaffective disorder subjects were the most likely to suffer from interactions
(64.6%), whereas prescriptions issued for those who had schizophrenia contained the least
number of interactions (51.6%). The total number of interactions was strongly associated with polypharmacy
(p < .001) and gender (p < .01), but not with age (p > .05) or diagnosis (p > .05).
Conclusion: High prevalence of polypharmacy and interactions between psychotropic medications
were observed in our sample, particularly of the significant grade.
