Investigative drug monitoring of antipsychotics and antidepressants during acute admission in a psychiatric state hospital in Germany

In the treatment of affective and schizophrenic psychosis, modern atypical antipsychotic agents and newer antidepressive agents have increasingly been used in recent years. Despite an obvious improvement of neuroleptics and antidepressants regarding side effects, this positive development seems not to have an influence on medication-compliance in patients with psychiatric illness. Many patients tend to discontinue their medication after hospitalization without consulting their psychiatrist.

In this prospective naturalistic study, patients were examined who had previously been treated psychopharmaceutically for a schizophrenic (n=40) or depressive (n=30) disorder and were readmitted in an psychiatric emergency clinic. Serum levels were examined depending on sex, height, weight and age of the patients. Major interest was to find out similarities or differences in the drug compliance of schizophrenic and depressive patients in the moment of rehospitalization.