To date there has been no study of prescribing habits in a psychiatric hospital in Ireland, as has happened elsewhere.
In a survey over one weekend at St. Brendan's Hospital, the prescription sheets and case notes of all 772 patients were examined.
The principal findings were polypharmacy, the use of benzodiazepines for disturbingly long periods of time, the preponderant prescription of drugs by their proprietary names and the extensive use of neuroleptics for apparently non-psychotic conditions. These results are discussed in the light of other similar surveys.