Real-world data on new users of atypical antipsychotics: characterisation, prescription patterns, healthcare costs and early cardio-metabolic occurrences from a large Italian database.

To describe new users of atypical antipsychotics (APs) in terms of sociodemographic characteristics, cardio-metabolic risk profile, prescription patterns, healthcare costs and cardio-metabolic events over the 24 months after treatment initiation. Atypical AP new users were selected from the ReS database and grouped into three: patients already affected by cardio-metabolic diseases (group A), patients without these clinical conditions but with predisposing conditions (group B) and patients without cardio-metabolic diseases and predisposing conditions (group C). Annual prescription patterns and healthcare costs were analysed. Subjects of groups B and C were matched with controls to compare the occurrences of cardio-metabolic events over 24 months. Thirty-two thousand thirty-four new users of atypical APs were selected (median age 69). The 22.3% had cardio-metabolic diseases, 14.8% had predisposing conditions and 62.9% had none of these. The 99.3% received monotherapy. The mean annual cost per patient was €2785, and the median cost was €1108. After 24 months, a cardio-metabolic event occurred in 11.5% of group B vs. 8.7% of the controls (p < .01), and in 5.0% of group C vs. 2.1% of the controls (p < .01). Patients treated with atypical AP were on average old and, in a non-negligible amount, with cardio-metabolic disease or predisposing conditions. New users of atypical APs showed a significantly higher likelihood to develop a cardio-metabolic event early after treatment initiation.

Citation

Carlo Piccinni, Letizia Dondi, Giulia Ronconi, Silvia Calabria, Immacolata Esposito, Antonella Pedrini, Aldo P Maggioni, Corrado Barbui, Nello Martini. Real-world data on new users of atypical antipsychotics: characterisation, prescription patterns, healthcare costs and early cardio-metabolic occurrences from a large Italian database. European journal of clinical pharmacology. 2020 Sep;76(9):1301-1310

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PMID: 32462326

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