Authors: Anna K Holl Renate Grohmann Martin Letmaier Annamaria Painold Sabrina Mörkl Sermin Toto Siegfried Kasper
Publish Date: 2014/08/20
Volume: 265, Issue: 3, Pages: 199-208
Abstract
Over the past years international treatment guidelines have been established for the treatment of anxiety disorders Nevertheless little is known as to whether the actual inpatient treatment follows these guidelines The main goal of this study was to answer the question whether patients with anxiety disorder are treated according to treatment guidelines A total of 2573 psychiatric inpatients with the diagnosis of anxiety disorder 920 men 1653 women were identified on the basis of the data of the international drug safety programme in psychiatry AMSP Of these patients 253 presented with phobia 266 with panic disorder 187 with generalized anxiety disorder GAD and 294 with other diagnoses of anxiety In all of the patients 127 did not receive any psychotropic medication and 229 were not treated with antidepressants Only 593 of patients with GAD 739 of patients with panic disorder and 521 of patients with phobia were treated according to diagnostic guidelines The majority 603 of all patients received one or two psychotropic drugs and only 37 received five or more psychotropic drugs In two groups of patients one group with phobia and one with panic disorder the annual prescription rate of antidepressants significantly increased over time The prescription rate for anticonvulsants in patients with GAD increased from 0 in 1997 to 417 in 2011 and for antipsychotics from 407 in 1997 to 472 in 2011 In particular patients with GAD were commonly treated with antipsychotics
Keywords: