OBJECTIVES

The aim of this retrospective study was to investigate the compliance with neuroleptic therapy in schizophrenia (SP) and bipolar disorder (BD) patients followed in different psychiatric practices in Germany.

METHODS

The study was based on data from the Disease Analyzer database (IQVIA) and included patients who were diagnosed with either SP or BD and had received at least two prescriptions for a neuroleptic drug (ATC: N05) from one of XXX psychiatrists in Germany between January 2016 and December 2018. Only practices with at least 10 patients taking neuroleptics were included. The average medication possession ratio (MPR) per patient was calculated. The proportions of patients with MPR of ≥80% per psychiatrist practice were estimated in order to compare the practices.

RESULTS

A total of 2,870 SP and 2,327 BD patients had received at least two neuroleptic prescriptions in 55 psychiatric practices. The mean MPR was 59.8% (standard deviation (SD): 13.9%) in SP and 65.0% (SD: 11.5%) in BD patients. The shares of patients with an optimal MPR value (≥80%) strongly differed between practices (from 28% to 92% for SP and from 33% to 92% in BP). A moderate correlation (Pearson correlation coefficient = 0.45 (p<0.001) was found between the compliant patient proportions per practice in SP versus BP, even after adjusting for patient age, sex, and the shares of atypical antipsychotic prescriptions.

CONCLUSIONS

Psychiatrists play an important role in the compliance of SP and BP patients treated with neuroleptics.