Use of the Clinical Laboratory in Psychiatric Practice

Abstract

In this review, the authors address the general principles of prescribing psychiatric medications and discuss how the clinical laboratory can be used to guide prescribing practices. Treatment considerations in different settings and for different medications are discussed. Because the clinical laboratory is advancing in its technology, so should the clinician's knowledge of how to use the clinical laboratory. The authors propose recommendations and a simple algorithm for how to use medication levels in blood and other fluids to guide care in medications without well-defined therapeutic windows.

Keywords: Blood drug levels; Clinical laboratory; Psychotropic prescribing practices; Substance abuse; Therapeutic drug monitoring; Urine drug levels; Urine drug testing.