Prescription and management of psychotropic medication in Autism Spectrum Disorder: A preliminary review of practice
Year: 2015
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) affects approximately 1 in 68 children in America. \nThere is no cure for ASD however there are a limited number of effective treatments. \nPsychotropic medication has become an increasingly popular treatment for ASD. \nBetween 35-57% of children with ASD in the U.S. are taking at least one psychotropic \nmedication; many children are taking more than one. Despite awareness that multiple \nvariables influence the reported use of psychotropic medication in ASD (e.g., symptom \nseverity, age, gender, insurance type), and the growing body of literature addressing the \neffectiveness of psychotropic medication as a treatment for ASD, a considerable practice \ngap remains. Currently, very little is known about prescribing patterns within this \npopulation and therefore there is a need to understand how prescribing occurs. The \npurpose of this study was to investigate patient, environment, prescriber and information \nvariables that influence the prescription and evaluation of psychotropic medication use in \nASD. \nComparisons between psychotropic medication usage data and prescriber data reported \nhere highlighted that inferences about prescribing trends based on usage data should be \nmade with caution. In addition to answering the research questions, these data revealed, \nfor the first time, separate prescribing rates for core and related symptoms of ASD, and \nalso data directly from the prescriber’s perspective.
Author: Chrystal Jansz Rieken
Language: English
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2283209151