The researchers from the Stanford Prevention Research Center found that in all prescribed atypical antipsychotics such as Zyprex, Risperdal and Seroquel, more than half are not sure of being advantageous. Despite the cost of these drugs, they result in side effects such as diabetes, weigh gain and heart disease.
To analyze the affects of these drugs, researchers investigated eighteen hundred physicians who were part of the survey carried out by IMS Health Data, the health care information company, which collected data of each physician two days per quarter. The study found that prescription of antipsychotic drugs during doctors visits increased from six million in 1995 to sixteen million in 2008.
But the rates of prescription for antipsychotics of first generation had dropped from five million to one million during that period. The use of antipsychotics for profits lacking FDA endorsement increased from four million in doctors visits in 1995 to nine million in 2008, reported the study published in the medical journal Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety.
Due to safety issues, physician should prescribe them only when they are sure patients will get significant benefits. These are normally used and very expensive drugs, explained senior author Randall Stafford, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of medicine at the Stanford Prevention Research Center.
These drugs are prescribed at an alarming rate since their launch. They were initially accepted only for treating schizophrenia by government, but now they are constantly prescribed for conditions such as autism, delirium, dementia, bipolar disorder and personality disorders.
Doctor long to recommend and use the most recent therapies and even when those latest therapies does not necessarily present a big advantage, there is still a propensity to think that the newest drugs must be better, added Prof Stafford.