This study was conducted to analyze the utilization of drugs in psychiatric inpatients in Belgrade, Serbia.

This is a cross-section study, performed in 2009, at two leading psychiatric hospitals in Belgrade. All the inpatients (n = 161) hospitalized on the day of the study (except patients treated for substance addiction) were included. The data on patients’ characteristics, diagnosis and therapy were obtained from the hospital charts. Diagnostic categories were registered according to the ICD-10.

Distribution of diagnosis is shown in Figure 1. There was a prominent tendency towards polypharmacy (average number of drugs per patient 3,51, similar in all diagnostic groups).

Anxiolytics/hypnotics represented 34,57% of all prescriptions, antipsychotics 24,72%, antidepressants 19,52%, mood stabilizers 16,17% and anticholinergics 5,02%. The most prescribed drug of all was lorazepam (37,3% of all patients). The frequency of different psychopharmacological groups in all diagnostic groups was tested separately (Figure 2.).

This study shows that in psychiatric prescribing practice in Serbia, there is a trend towards use of drug combinations and the over-use of anxiolytic/hypnotic drugs. This situation requires further monitoring and more efforts on therapeutic guidelines development and implementation.

[Figure 1]

[Figure 2]