Psychotropic drug intake in residents newly admitted to nursing homes

While several surveys have shown that psychotropic drugs are frequently used by nursing home residents, no studies have been performed to investigate whether the rates of drug use increase during the stay in nursing homes or whether residents have taken these drugs already before admission. Therefore, we investigated 262 residents admitted to rural and urban nursing homes in Austria for prevalence of psychotropic drug intake before admission, shortly after admission, and 6 months later. Two weeks after admission, 72.1% of the residents were being treated with psychotropics, while 6 months later 79.0% were receiving these drugs. The significantly higher rates of psychotropic drug use among the psychiatrically ill and in those suffering from sleeping problems suggest that these drugs were prescribed aptly, but residents without appropriate criteria for drug intake were often also treated with psychotropics. During 3 months before admission to nursing homes, 45.5% of the sample reported having taken psychotropics. In more than half of residents without drug intake before admission, psychotropic treatment was initiated within the first 2 weeks after admission, while during the first 6 months after admission the rate of drug use increased only slightly. This suggests that a large percentage of psychotropic intake is due to nursing home orders. Received: 20 January 1997/Final version: 21 May 1997