A pharmacy led program to review anti-psychotic prescribing for people with dementia

Child, Anne, Clarke, Amy, Fox, Chris ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9480-5704 and Maidment, Ian (2012) A pharmacy led program to review anti-psychotic prescribing for people with dementia. BMC Psychiatry, 12. ISSN 1471-244X

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Abstract

Background Anti-psychotics, prescribed to people with dementia, are associated with approximately 1,800 excess annual deaths in the UK. A key public health objective is to limit such prescribing of anti-psychotics. Methods This project was conducted within primary care in Medway Primary Care Trust (PCT) in the UK. There were 2 stages for the intervention. First, primary care information systems including the dementia register were searched by a pharmacy technician to identify people with dementia prescribed anti-psychotics. Second, a trained specialist pharmacist conducted targeted clinical medication reviews in people with dementia initiated on anti-psychotics by primary care, identified by the data search. Results Data were collected from 59 practices. One hundred and sixty-one (15.3%) of 1051 people on the dementia register were receiving low-dose anti-psychotics. People with dementia living in residential homes were nearly 3.5 times more likely to receive an anti-psychotic [25.5% of care home residents (118/462) vs. 7.3% of people living at home (43/589)] than people living in their own homes (p < 0.0001; Fisher’s exact test). In 26 practices there was no-one on the dementia register receiving low-dose anti-psychotics. Of the 161 people with dementia prescribed low-dose anti-psychotics, 91 were receiving on-going treatment from local secondary care mental health services or Learning Disability Teams. Of the remaining 70 patients the anti-psychotic was either withdrawn, or the dosage was reduced, in 43 instances (61.4%) following the pharmacy-led medication review. Conclusions In total 15.3% of people on the dementia register were receiving a low-dose anti-psychotic. However, such data, including the recent national audit may under-estimate the usage of anti-psychotics in people with dementia. Anti-psychotics were used more commonly within care home settings. The pharmacist-led medication review successfully limited the prescribing of anti-psychotics to people with dementia.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: anti-psychotics,national dementia strategy,medication review,dementia registers,sdg 3 - good health and well-being ,/dk/atira/pure/sustainabledevelopmentgoals/good_health_and_well_being
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > Norwich Medical School
UEA Research Groups: Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > Research Groups > Psychological Sciences (former - to 2018)
Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > Research Groups > Mental Health
Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Norwich Epidemiology Centre
Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > Research Groups > Norwich Epidemiology Centre
Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > Research Centres > Institute for Volunteering Research
Depositing User: Users 2731 not found.
Date Deposited: 08 Mar 2013 12:53
Last Modified: 21 Apr 2023 04:32
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/41901
DOI: 10.1186/1471-244X-12-155

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