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Antipsychotic Users Least Likely To Collect Drugs

Patients prescribed antipsychotic drugs are the least likely to collect their medicines, according to data published by The Information Centre for health and social care.

Presented in a report entitled "Prescribing compliance, a review of the proportion of prescriptions dispensed", the data compare prescriptions supplied by 145 GP practices for 19 different drug groups between the years 2004 and 2008 with the number of prescriptions dispensed. The report reveals that 85.1 per cent of antipsychotic prescriptions were dispensed in 2008 compared with 98.5 per cent of prescriptions for other drugs.

Tim Straughan, chief executive of The Information Centre, suggested that this might be because patients "don’t need the medication" or because of a "reluctance to take a drug they have had side effects from previously".

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Extract taken from PJ Online