Routine Plasma Level Determination to Compare Actual vs Expected Plasma Levels at Psychiatric Inpatient Admission
Study Details
Study Description
Brief Summary
Compliance with treatment is notoriously low in psychiatric patients. Traditional methods of monitoring compliance, however, may underreport nonadherence to treatment. In this study, actual plasma levels at admission - which are ROUTINELY taken at the Dept Psychiatry of the Paracelsus Medical University - were compared to plasma levels that can be expected from the prescribed preadmission dosing regimen. This was done to give treating psychiatrists a quantitatively precise idea of how frequently they can expect their patients to have plasma levels that are below the level of medication as intended by the prescribing physician.
Condition or Disease | Intervention/Treatment | Phase |
---|---|---|
|
Detailed Description
Context Noncompliance or incomplete compliance with psychopharmacological medication by psychiatric patients is a frequent risk and may be underreported by classical methods (e.g., pill counts or coloring additives).
Objective To determined the prevalence of incomplete compliance and/or faster-than average elimination of the medication by comparing actual plasma levels with those expected from the prescribed dosage under naturalistic routine conditions.
Design Forty-five day prospective routine survey.
Setting University acute inpatient clinic.
Participants All consecutive admissions for acute inpatient treatment from June 1, 2005 to July 15, 2005 who had been treated with antidepressants and/or antipsychotics.
Intervention Determination of plasma levels of all psychiatric medications and their comparison to the expected plasma levels, based on known preadmission dosing regimen and average pharmacokinetic data.
Main outcome measures The percentage of admissions with actual plasma level that were (a) more than 2-fold lower or (b) more than 2-fold higher than the expected plasma level or (c) differing only 0.5- to 2-fold from the expected plasma level.
Study Design
Arms and Interventions
Arm | Intervention/Treatment |
---|---|
A all patients consecutively admitted to psychiatric inpatient treatment (naturalistic sample from routine psychiatric hospital intake) |
Other: Routine psychiatric inpatient treatment
Routine psychiatric inpatient treatment. This is not an interventional study.
|
Outcome Measures
Primary Outcome Measures
- The percentage of admissions with actual plasma level that were (a) more than 2-fold lower or (b) more than 2-fold higher than the expected plasma level or (c) differing only 0.5- to 2-fold from the expected plasma level. [at admission to psychiatric inpatient treatment]
Secondary Outcome Measures
- There is NO secondary outcome measure. [at admission]
Eligibility Criteria
Criteria
Inclusion Criteria:
- eligible for psychiatric inpatient treatment
Exclusion Criteria:
- not eligible for psychiatric inpatient treatment
Contacts and Locations
Locations
Site | City | State | Country | Postal Code | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Department of Psychiatry I, Paracelsus Medical University | Salzburg | Austria | A-5020 |
Sponsors and Collaborators
- Medical University Innsbruck
Investigators
- Principal Investigator: Gerald Zernig, MD, Medical University Innsbruck
Study Documents (Full-Text)
None provided.More Information
Publications
None provided.- PMUPSY20050001