Use of polypharmacy and self-reported mood in outpatients with bipolar disorder INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PSYCHIATRY IN CLINICAL PRACTICE Adli, M., Whybrow, P. C., Grof, P., Rasgon, N., Gyulai, L., Baethge, C., Glenn, T., Bauer, M. 2005; 9 (4): 251-256

Abstract

Objective. As polypharmacy is routinely used for the treatment of bipolar disorder, the relation between the daily number of psychotropic medications and self-reported mood was investigated. Method. Eighty patients (35 men and 45 women) with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder I or II, recruited from academic centres, entered their mood, sleep, and psychotropic medications for 3 months into ChronoRecord software. A total of 8662 days of data was received (mean 114.7 days/per patient). Results. Seventy-nine patients took a mean of 3.8 medications daily (SD 1.7; range 1-9); one took none. Of these patients, 73 (92.4%) took mood stabilizers, 47 (58.8%) took antidepressants, 31 (38.8%) took antipsychotics, 34 (42.5%) took benzodiazepines and 17 (21.1%) took thyroid hormones. Patients reporting normal mood more frequently took fewer medications; the Pearson correlation coefficient between the number of medications and the percent of days normal was -0.481 (P?

View details for DOI 10.1080/13651500510029200

View details for Web of Science ID 000232801200005