TABLE 6.

Pediatric psychotropic polypharmacy in special settings.

Data source, Study period, References	Other	Age, years	Population	Psychotropic concomitants	Outcome
Mid-Atlantic state continuity of care outpatient program Wu et al. (48)	Quasi-experimental program evaluation	3–21	N = 496, continuously enrolled for 1 year pre, during and post-intervention	≥3 classes w/ ≥15 day overlap	Compared psychotropic polypharmacy of youth enrolled in continuity of care program (≥90 days) with propensity score matched youth in usual care. Polypharmacy did not significantly differ between groups, affecting 29 to 31 to 21% across 3 years.
A state residential treatment center vanWattum et al. (49)	prevalence of polypharmacy change, admission to discharge	11–18	N = 131, Admission to discharge change in polypharmacy	≥2 psychotropic medications	Discharged youth had fewer polypharmacy treated youth and 60% increase in the non-medicated subgroup.
Juvenile secure facility, 1 year, 2007–2008 Lyons et al. (50)	Change in polypharmacy, admission to discharge	12–22	N = 668; 68 with psychotropic medication	≥2 psychotropic medications in the same month	There were 10.2% medicated within 1st month of admission; 48.5% received ≥2, with atypical antipsychotics and antidepressants most common.