Antipsychotics

Children as young as four in foster care are taking three or more psychotropic medications, and the length of time that children aged six...

Careful reductions in dosage levels of antipsychotic medications over time improved long-term rates of recovery and functional remission in patients diagnosed with a first-episode psychosis.

Older adults are often prescribed antipsychotics off-label for behavioral control in the hospital. But there’s no evidence for antipsychotics helping, and a great deal of evidence of harm.

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.

Common psychotropic medications may be contributing to the higher rates of physical illnesses and mortality in people diagnosed with mental illnesses.

Writing in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, researchers from the Health Economics Resource Center studied the effects of long-acting injectable risperidone (Consta) on 369 patients...

"Pathological gambling, hypersexuality, compulsive shopping and other impulse control disorders were associated with the use of dopamine receptor agonists, often prescribed for Parkinson’s disease,...

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

Researchers in London and Spain, in a prospective, randomized, study of long-term (3 year) effects of first- and second-generation antipsychotics on neurocognition in 79...

Researchers at the University of Illinois College of Medicine found, in a 20-year prospective study of 139 psychotic patients, that patients had a far...

Taking the antipsychotic medication risperidone significantly increases men's chances of developing gynecomastia, or breast enlargement, according to a study by University of British Columbia...

Swedish researchers find, in a study of all women giving birth in Sweden from July 1, 2005 through December 31, 2009 that those taking...

Antipsychotics are being prescribed to people who may have challenging behaviors but no mental disorder, according to new research published in this month’s issue of BMJ. “Excessive use of psychotropic drugs has individual and systemic implications,” the researchers write. “Antipsychotics, in particular, are associated with several adverse side effects that can impair quality of life and lead to deleterious health outcomes.”

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.

More than ten-percent of adults in the United States are currently prescribed at least one psychiatric medication but there is currently a lack of research on the prevalence of adverse drug events (ADEs) associated with these prescriptions outside of clinical trials.

Three independent studies in two journals reported strong links between antipsychotics and falls and fractures.

Peter Lehmann reviews the contribution of antipsychotics to suicide and depression in schizophrenia in the current International Journal of Psychotherapy.  Publications about the intrinsic effects of...

An article in January's American Journal of Psychiatry weighs the relative risk of mortality associated with various antipsychotics and mood stabilizers used in the treatment of...

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...

Researchers in Singapore find that antipsychotic medications are associated with changes to colonic architecture, which could result in difficult colonoscopy and increased colonoscopy-related risks....

Dutch researchers write in the Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology that, in a prospective study of 7415 persons with diagnoses of schizophrenia, use of a first-generation...

Antipsychotics have overtaken antidepressants as the most costly class of psychiatric medication in England, according to a study by Stephen Ilyas and Joanna Moncrieff...

Although cocaine and psychostimulant dependence are thought to be related to increased dopamine release, research from Tokyo and Long Island finds that the effect...

Despite 2004 clinical guidelines issued by the Veterans' Administration that "there is insufficient evidence to recommend atypical antipsychotics for the treatment of PTSD,"  ...

A paper by Joanna Moncrieff and Laura Allison in the journal History of Psychiatry reviews "the theory and practice of emergency sedation for behavioural...