UK psychiatrists’ experience of withdrawal of antipsychotics prescribed for challenging behaviours in adults with intellectual disabilities and/or autism

Abstract

Background A high proportion of adults with intellectual disabilities are prescribed off-licence antipsychotics in the absence of a psychiatric illness. The National Health Service in England launched an initiative in 2016, ‘Stopping over-medication of people with a learning disability [intellectual disability], autism or both’ (STOMP), to address this major public health concern.

Aims To gain understanding from UK psychiatrists working with adults with intellectual disabilities on the successes and challenges of withdrawing antipsychotics for challenging behaviours.

Method An online questionnaire was sent to all UK psychiatrists working in the field of intellectual disability (estimated 225).

Results Half of the 88 respondents stated that they started withdrawing antipsychotics over 5 years ago and 52.3% stated that they are less likely to initiate an antipsychotic since the launch of STOMP. However, since then, 46.6% are prescribing other classes of psychotropic medication instead of antipsychotics for challenging behaviours, most frequently the antidepressants. Complete antipsychotic discontinuation in over 50% of patients treated with antipsychotics was achieved by only 4.5% of respondents (n = 4); 11.4% reported deterioration in challenging behaviours in over 50% of patients on withdrawal and the same proportion (11.4%) reported no deterioration. Only 32% of respondents made the diagnosis of psychiatric illness in all their patients themselves. Family and paid carers’ concern, lack of multi-agency and multidisciplinary input and unavailability of non-medical psychosocial intervention are key reported factors hampering the withdrawal attempt.

Conclusions There is an urgent need to develop national guidelines to provide a framework for systematic psychotropic drug reviews and withdrawal where possible.