Mehboob Yaqub, Yasir Jassam, Grace Fergusson.
Monitoring the patients on high dose antipsychotic medications, a standard based clinical audit cycle.
J Pak Psych Soc Jan ;8(2):84-9.

Objective: To assess our current practice of physical health monitoring of patients on high dose antipsychotic medication against the nationally and locally accepted standard guidelines. Design: A retrospective study of medication charts and case notes of the patients on high dose antipsychotic medication. Place and duration of study: This clinical audit cycle was carried out at Argyll and Bute Hospital, Lochgilphead, Scotland. The clinical audit data was collected in first week of October 2007 while the data for re-audit was collected in the second week of January 2008. Subjects and Method: Medication charts of all the patients in three wards were studied. 40 patients were on antipsychotic medication for treatment of psychotic illnesses, out of which 15 patients were on high dose antipsychotic medications. The extent of completion of their physical health monitoring was compared with the standards. The re-audit was done using the same method and number of patients on high dose antipsychotic medications was 20. Results: Physical health monitoring was not up to date for any of the patients on high dose antipsychotic medication in the initial audit findings. This improved to 35% in the re-audit findings after interventions. Conclusion: We found poor compliance with the standards for appropriate physical health monitoring of this group of patients. The interventions improved compliance but more improvement was required forwhich further interventions were planned

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