The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 280 No 7497 p428
12 April 2008

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Antipsychotics prescribed for children despite lack of data

Concerns about the use of antipsychotic medicines for children have been raised by researchers from the School of Pharmacy, University of London.

They suggest that some 9,500 children and adolescents aged 18 years and under had been prescribed antipsychotics by GPs in 2005, adding that prescribing of atypical antipsychotic drugs has increased despite the lack of conclusive evidence showing their superiority over older conventional antipsychotics.

Macey Murray, teaching and research fellow at the school’s Centre for Paediatric Pharmacy Research, and one of the authors of the study — due to be published in the journal Pediatrics in May 2008 — told The Journal that the overall prevalence of prescribing of antipsychotics had nearly doubled during the years 1992–2005 from 0.39 to 0.77 per 1,000 patient-years.

“We also found that the prevalence increased three-fold in children aged 7–12 years over the same time period,” she added.

“Our study used data collected from GPs, but it is very likely the prescribing of these drugs was initiated by clinicians in secondary or tertiary care. The majority of GPs will tend to continue prescribing these drugs following advice from such specialists,” Mrs Murray explained.

“We are concerned about the safety of antipsychotic drugs, particularly as there are little data available. The clinical trials that have been conducted in children and teenagers are small studies so will have little safety data, particularly on rare side effects,” she pointed out. “There needs to be more careful monitoring of the long-term safety of antipsychotics.”

Accordingly, the research centre has already piloted a system for collecting such data in the UK and is in the process of developing it further.