Antipsychotic Polypharmacy and High-Dose Antipsychotic Regimens in the Residential Italian Forensic Psychiatric Population (REMS)

Few data exist regarding treatment with antipsychotics in forensic psychiatric patient populations with high social dangerousness. We performed a secondary analysis of 681 patients treated with at least one antipsychotic, extracted from a 1-year observational retrospective study, conducted on 730 patients treated in the Italian Residencies for Execution of Security Measures (REMS) (96.4% of the REMS population). We aimed at investigating antipsychotic polypharmacy (prescription of two or more concomitant antipsychotics) and high dose/very high-dose antipsychotics, as well as the possible factors associated with such therapeutic regimens. High dose/very highdose antipsychotics were defined as a prescribed daily dose to WHO-defined daily dose ratio greater than 1.5 or 3.0, respectively. Binary logistic regression analysis was used in three models to test possible predictors of antipsychotic polypharmacy, high-dose antipsychotics, and very high-dose antipsychotic prescription. Antipsychotic polypharmacy resulted in n = 308 (45.2%) of the patients, n = 346 (50.8%) received high-dose antipsychotics, and n = 96 (14.1%) very high-dose antipsychotics. The multivariate analysis disclosed an association between antipsychotic polypharmacy and male gender (odds ratio (OR): 2.75 and 95% CI: 1.34–5.65), long-acting injectable (LAI) antipsychotic prescription (OR: 2.62 and 95% CI: 1.84–3.74), and aggressive behavior in REMS (OR: 1.63 and 95% CI: 1.13–2.36). High-dose antipsychotics were also associated with male gender (OR: 2.01 and 95% CI: 1.02–3.95), LAI antipsychotic prescription (OR: 2.78 and 95% CI: 1.95–3.97), and aggressive behavior in REMS (OR: 1.63 and 95% CI: 1.12–2.36). The use of antipsychotic polypharmacy and highdose antipsychotics is frequent in the REMS population. These results might depend on regulatory and organizational aspects of the REMS system, including variability in structures, lack of a common model of care, and lack of stratified therapeutic security.