Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2023 Sep;43(3):434-439.
doi: 10.1002/npr2.12372. Epub 2023 Aug 13.

Five-year trend of antipsychotic prescription practices in a district Hospital in Ghana: A retrospective study

Dennis Bomansang Daliri  1   2 , Agani Afaya  3   4 , Timothy Tienbia Laari  5 , Adiak Fredrick  6 , Ama Gaynor Ankamah  7 , Susana Annan  8 , Nancy Abagye  9
Affiliations

Five-year trend of antipsychotic prescription practices in a district Hospital in Ghana: A retrospective study

Dennis Bomansang Daliri et al. Neuropsychopharmacol Rep. 2023 Sep.

Abstract

Introduction: Antipsychotics are the mainstay treatment for psychotic conditions. Their prescription, however, should come with some caution since the consequences of their side effects can be dire for the patient receiving the prescription. Because of inadequate experts in low-middle-income countries, non-experts are trained through the Mental Health Gap Action Program (MHGAP) to reduce the treatment gap. This retrospective study analyzed the trend of antipsychotic prescriptions in a district hospital where mental health services are delivered by non-experts.

Methodology: This was a retrospective descriptive study that gathered data between 2015 and 2019 from the electronic database of the hospital. Statistical analysis was conducted using SPSS version 20. We reported the descriptive statistics of our findings in the form of frequencies and percentages.

Results: There was a year-on-year increase in antipsychotic prescriptions over the study period. Starting with 48.1% in 2015 to 56.4% in 2019. The main condition for which antipsychotics were prescribed was psychosis (58.6%), followed by substance use disorder (SUD) (26%). Patients with age ≥ 50 received the most prescription of antipsychotics. Starting from 2015, there was a high percentage of typical antipsychotic prescriptions (90.14%) with atypical antipsychotics being 9.86% and by 2019 atypical antipsychotic prescriptions had shot up to 74.8%. Polypharmacy prescription rate was 8.1% over the study period.

Conclusion: Antipsychotics are essential in the treatment of psychosis and other mental health conditions. Prescribers need to know more about these drugs to prescribe them appropriately and to minimize the likelihood of side effects among patients who use these drugs.

Keywords: EPSE; MHGAP; antipsychotics; atypical; meso-cortical; meso-limbic; nigrostriatal; polypharmacy; tuberoinfundibular; typical.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Year‐on‐year trends of typical and atypical antipsychotic prescriptions.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

References

    1. Gómez‐Revuelta M, Pelayo‐Terán JM, Juncal‐Ruiz M, Vázquez‐Bourgon J, Suárez‐Pinilla P, Romero‐Jiménez R, et al. Antipsychotic treatment effectiveness in first episode of psychosis: PAFIP 3‐year follow‐up randomized clinical trials comparing haloperidol, olanzapine, risperidone, aripiprazole, quetiapine, and ziprasidone. Int J Neuropsychopharmacol. 2020;23(4):217–229. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Ban TA. Fifty years chlorpromazine: a historical perspective. Neuropsychiatr Dis Treat. 2007;3(4):495–500. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Arana GW. An overview of side effects caused by typical antipsychotics. J Clin Psychiatry. 2000;61(Suppl 8):5–11; discussion 2–3. - PubMed
    1. Casey DE. Pathophysiology of antipsychotic drug‐induced movement disorders. J Clin Psychiatry. 2004;65:25–28. - PubMed
    1. Vauquelin G, Bostoen S, Vanderheyden P, Seeman P. Clozapine, atypical antipsychotics, and the benefits of fast‐off D2 dopamine receptor antagonism. Naunyn Schmiedebergs Arch Pharmacol. 2012;385(4):337–372. - PubMed

Substances