PSYCHOTROPIC-DRUG UTILIZATION IN A UNIVERSITY-BASED COMMUNITY AND PSYCHIATRIC OUTPATIENT CLINICS - A RETROSPECTIVE SURVEY

Psychotropic drug prescriptions issued by both community medicine (CM) and psychiatric (PSY) out-patient clinics at Hospital Universiti Sains Malaysia (HUSM) were retrospectively surveyed over a period of four months. This study assesses the type and percentage of psychotropic drugs prescribed in relation to symptomatology or diagnosis. Nine hundreds and 79 prescriptions which contain psychotropic drugs were screened: 61% and 39% were derived from PSY and CM clinics, respectively. The most commonly prescribed drugs from PSY clinics were amitriptyline (20.9%) followed by alprazolam (17.5%) chlorpromazine (14.5%) and the least prescribed was prochlorperazine (0.6%). However, in CM clinic the most commonly prescribed drugs were prochlorperazine (69%) followed by diazepam (19.3%) and chlorpromazine (0.5%). It was found that the diagnosis due to psychiatric problems were 86.5% at PSY clinic and only 9.6% at CM clinic. The majority of the drug prescriptions were used for complaints of non-specific symptoms (37%), headache (14.4%), dizziness (22%), viral fever (3.2%), gastritis (9.3%) and mild hypertension (4.9%) at CM clinic. The prescribing pattern observed in the survey may reflect two major factors; the type of patients treated and the prescribing habit of the physicians. Thus, a medication audit is essential, particularly for psychotropic drugs, as a measure for the quality of prescribing and promoting a rational drug therapy.