Prevalence of baseline lipid monitoring in patients prescribed second-generation antipsychotics during their index hospitalization: a retrospective cohort study
General Hospital Psychiatry, 05/08/2012
Clinical Article
Laundon W et al. – This study provides alarming evidence that, even in an academic setting with active discussions among psychiatrists regarding issues of metabolic risk and appropriate monitoring, adherence to American Psychiatric Association/American Diabetes Association consensus statement recommendations on rates of baseline lipid monitoring is disappointingly low in the absence of systems to encourage or automate best practice.
Methods- This study retrospectively examined the prevalence of baseline lipid monitoring in patients prescribed second-generation antipsychotics during their index psychiatric hospitalization at Duke University Hospital between July 1, 2005, and July 1, 2010.
- Seventy patients were included in the study, with a mean age of 21.5±2.5 years.
- Of these patients, 22 (31.4%) had baseline lipid panels drawn during hospitalization.
- Lipid monitoring was statistically more frequent in males than in females (P=.01).
- Although not statistically significant, lipid monitoring was also more likely to occur among subjects who were African American (40%; P=.07) and with the prescription of olanzapine (50%; P=.07).
- About half of baseline lipid panels demonstrated either a low high-density lipoprotein or high triglycerides, indicating at least one risk factor for the metabolic syndrome.
