Adverse drug reactions in a psychiatric department of tertiary care teaching hospital in India: Analysis of spontaneously reported cases

The epidemiological data are limited for the spontaneous adverse drug reaction (ADR) reporting system in psychiatry and its comparison with intensive monitoring studies in terms of causative drugs, seriousness, preventability and drug interactions. This spontaneous ADR reporting study was carried out over a period of three years in the psychiatry department. We adopted WHO definition for an ADR, Naranjo's algorithm for causality, WHO-ADR terminology for the labeling of involved organ-system, International conference on harmonisation (ICH) E2A guidelines for seriousness, modified Schumock and Thornton's criteria for preventability and Medscape drug interaction checker for drug interactions. Two subgroup analyses were performed to find out the risk factors for the serious and preventable reactions. A total of 97 ADRs from 67 patients were included for analysis. The incidence of 'overall' and 'serious ADRs were 0.69% (95% CI: 0.54%, 0.88%) and 0.18% (95% CI: 0.12-0.29%), respectively. The females experienced more ADRs than males. The most commonly reported ADR, incriminated pharmacology group and drug, were extrapyramidal movement disorders (22.68%), atypical antipsychotics (35.62%) and escitalopram (13.91%), respectively. One out of five and one out three reactions were considered as 'serious' and 'preventable', respectively. The drug interactions contributed in 34.02% reactions. The factors significantly associated with 'serious' reactions were typical antipsychotics [OR: 5.47 (1.68, 17.87)], central and peripheral nervous system disorders [OR: 24.00 (5.12, 112.5)] and extrapyramidal reactions [OR: 14.03 (4.43, 44.43)]. The polypharmacy [OR: 5.85 (1.90, 18.03)] was significantly associated with 'preventable' reactions. The spontaneous reporting system is efficient to detect serious reactions and preventable reactions.