Antipsychotics are drugs that can be used for the treatment of several psychiatric disorders. They are not only used by adults, but also by children and adolescents. Antipsychotics can cause severe side effects, including weight gain and changes in blood glucose. Information about the occurrence and consequences of these side effects in children and adolescents is limited. Therefore, it is unclear how these side effects should be monitored in this group of patients and how monitoring is done by physicians in routine clinical practice. We aim to study how often physicians monitor the side effects of antipsychotics in children, adolescents and young adults (<24 years old). In addition, we also look at the test results to determine whether side effects actually occur. We will compare children, adolescents and young adults who use antipsychotics and non-users of these drugs.
Second generation antipsychotics (SGAs) can cause severe metabolic side effects. A retrospective cohort study of children, adolescents and young adults (<24 years old) receiving SGAs between 2000-2015 will be performed. Metabolic screening rates and the test results will be determined. The metabolic screening includes measurement of physical and laboratory parameters. Predictors of metabolic screening that are investigated include age, gender, psychiatric and somatic diagnoses, use of other medication, baseline values, type of SGA, metabolic screening test results, frequency of medical office visits, referrals. We will compare the study group with two control groups: - Patients using antidepressants: to assess whether a psychiatric disorder and the use of antidepressants may influence the metabolic screening rate and test results. - Patients using salbutamol: to compare to a control group where we expect no metabolic screening. The patients will be matched by year of birth, gender, general practice and index date (start medication). The rate of metabolic screening and test results in the three different groups will be compared. We will use the t-test.
Metabolic screening rates; Test results of metabolic screening.
Eibert ( Rob ) Heerdink - Chief Investigator - University Medical Centre Utrecht
Patrick Souverein - Corresponding Applicant - Utrecht University
Arief Lalmohamed - Collaborator - Utrecht University
E. van den Ban - Collaborator - Karakter Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
Lenneke Minjon - Collaborator - Utrecht University
Marloes Bazelier - Collaborator - Utrecht University
Toine Egberts - Collaborator - Utrecht University