Antipsychotics

Researchers from Philadelphia and Baltimore find, in a study of Medicaid records for 50 states and the District of Columbia, that antipsychotic prescribing to...

New research examines service user attitudes on discontinuing and reducing antipsychotic drugs.

20-year follow-up study finds that after four years, patients not prescribed antipsychotics have significantly better work functioning.

With increasing evidence that psychiatric drugs do more harm than good over the long term, the field of psychiatry often seems focused on sifting through the mounds of research data it has collected, eager to at last sit up and cry, here’s a shiny speck of gold! Our drugs do work! One recently published study on withdrawal of antipsychotics tells of long-term benefits. A second tells of long-term harm. Which one is convincing?

The Cochrane Library reports that "many older people with Alzheimer's dementia and NPS (neuropsychiatric symptoms) can be withdrawn from chronic antipsychotic medication without detrimental effects...

The August issue of the British Journal of Psychiatry offers an editorial stating that, as "mental health services appear to have overestimated the strength...

“Live, healthy babies are the most common outcome following the use of antipsychotic medication in pregnancy,” conclude Australian researchers in a study that was...

MedPageToday reports that Janssen Pharmaceuticals omitted data from a 2003 study that connected Risperdal with serious side effects. Janssen was previously sued by the FDA for marketing Risperdal for off-label uses and settled for $2.2 billion in 2013. Earlier this year, a man with autism was awarded $2.5 million after growing breasts while on Risperdal. According to MedPage, documents from this latest case reveal missing data tables from a 2003 study “designed to ferret out potential adverse effects of long-term risperidone use.” The missing tables were related to elevated prolactin levels and side effects, including gynecomastia in men.

In a study published yesterday, researchers from the Nippon Medical School in Tokyo bring attention to a condition known as neuroleptic-induced deficit syndrome (NIDS)...

In a study of 597 outpatients who were perceived as likely nonadherers to oral antipsychotic interventions, Spanish researchers found that relapse was lower in...

Finnish reseachers report in Schizophrenia Research that antipsychotic use is associated with cognitive and memory impairments. The University of Oulu team studied forty people...

This month’s issue of JAMA Psychiatry ran an editorial commenting on recent research revealing that the majority of youth prescribed antipsychotics have not been diagnosed with a mental disorder.

No placebo controlled trials provide evidence of antipsychotics in first-episode psychosis.

"Many patients with first-episode psychosis receive medications that do not comply with recommended guidelines for first-episode treatment," states a National Institute of Mental Health...

A new study has found a strong association between antipsychotic drugs and higher rates of severe cases of COVID-19.

Side effects, mistrust, stigma, forgetfulness and lack of insight have all been studied as reasons that up to 75% of people with a schizophrenia...

Research published in the Journal of Psychiatric Practice finds that a "shared discussion of beliefs about medication between patient and care provider allows wider...

Antipsychotics are currently the predominant treatment for individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia, but there is an accumulating body of research that links the use of these drugs to structural abnormalities in the brain. A recent meta-analysis suggests that gray matter loss in the brain may depend on the dose and class of the antipsychotic.

A new study finds that adding an antipsychotic to existing antidepressant treatment is associated with a 45% increased risk of early death.

The New York Times reports that a two-year longitudinal study of over 13,000 men and women over 65 found that anticholinergic medications, which include many...

A study of 5-year outcomes for people taking either an ordinary oral antipsychotic or a long-acting injection of an antipsychotic found no differences between the two.

Canadian sleep researchers, writing in The Lancet, warn that weight gain, lipid and glucose dysregulation, restless leg syndrome, sleep-walking and eating while asleep, and...

Members of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Psychiatry Products division go on the defensive in a new article, responding to concerns about the agency’s approval of digital aripiprazole.

Results of a large government-funded study call into question current drug heavy approaches to treating people diagnosed with schizophrenia. The study, which the New York Times called “by far the most rigorous trial to date conducted in the United States,” found that patients who received smaller doses of antipsychotic drugs with individual talk therapy, family training, and support for employment and education had a greater reduction in symptoms as well as increases in quality of life, and participation in work and school than those receiving the current standard of care.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins explore the use of antipsychotics in children, finding a dramatic rise in off-label prescribing with little oversight or research into...