engleski

Availability of psychiatric medications to Croatian healthcare users and the influence of availability of atypical antipsychotics on psychiatric hospital morbidity

Introduction: In the last 20 years a lot of efficient psychiatric medications were marketed. That led to improvement in treatment of patients suffering from various mental disorders. Regardless of personal experience and impression that, at the moment, Croatia has no major problems regarding availability of the newest psychiatric medications to our citizens, we decided to check that availability and comment the results. Aim and methods: The aim of this work was to check the availability of psychiatric medications to Croatian healthcare users, changes in that availability through time, dynamics of introduction of new medications on the drug list of Croatian Institute for Health Insurance, and how availability of these medications, especially antipsychotics, influenced psychiatric hospital morbidity in Croatia. We analyzed all drug lists in Croatia between 1989 and 2011. Changes in use of different antipsychotics were observed through the example of University Psychiatric Hospital Vrapče, Zagreb. Results: Analysis of the 22-year dynamics of psychiatric drugs being included on the list of Croatian Institute for health Insurance shows that number of drugs in certain subcategories increased many times, especially in case of antipsychotics and antidepressants whose number increased 5 times. Conclusions: There was a steady yearly reduction in number of patients hospitalized because of schizophrenia and schizophrenia spectrum disorders, as use of newer atypical antipsychotics increased. We can be satisfied with drugs available on the drug list of Croatian Institute for Health Insurance, especially if compared to the situation in neighboring countries that are not yet part of the European Union.

atypical antipsychotics ; psychiatric medications ; drug list

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