Introduction: Treatment with one or more psychotropic medications (PMs), especially in the elderly, is associated with risk, and the effects of treatment are poorly validated. The aim of this article was to describe the use of PM in a population of citizens receiving either residential care or home care with focus on the prevalence of drug use, the combination of different PMs and doses in relation to current recommendations.
Methods: The medication lists of 214 citizens receiving residential care (122) and home care (92) were collected together with information on age, gender and residential status.
Results: Two thirds of the citizens (64.5%) used one or more PMs (antipsychotics 15.9%, antidepressants 43.5%, anxiolytics/hypnotics 27.1% and anti-dementia drugs 16.4%). Citizens treated with antipsychotics were also prescribed antidepressants (52.9%), anxiolytics/hypnotics (35.3%) and anti-dementia drugs (20.9%). Citizens treated with anti-dementia drugs were also prescribed antipsychotics (20.0%) and antidepressants (54.3%). Doses over 20 mg and 10 mg of citalopram and escitalopram, respectively, were given to 28.0% of the citizens treated with these antidepressants.
Conclusion: Compared to previous studies, we observed improvements with regard to doses and choice of drug, but the use of PMs among the elderly is still not sufficiently in accordance with current recommendations.
Funding: not relevant.
Trial registration: The Danish Data Protection Agency approved the project with journal number 2007-58-0015.