Polypharmacy in psychiatry practice

Although monotherapy is generally recommended as the treatment of choice, treatment resistance of patients with psychosis, cognitive, mood and anxiety disorders represents a significant clinical problem. In this context, augmentation and combination strategies are commonly employed to address this problem. Although multiple medication use common in psychiatric practice, reasons, efficacy and safety for polypharmacy, and augmentative strategies have remained unclear. It remains unclear if there is an evidence base to support polypharmacy. Furthermore, excessive and inappropriate use of psychotropic medications has been recognized as a public health problem.

Volume 1: Multiple medication use strategies -- Polypharmacy treatment strategies. Multiple psychiatric medications use in psychiatry: how rational can it be? / Ahsan Y. Khan, Sheldon H. Preskorn -- Receptor binding targets for antipsychotic efficacy / Maureen M. Grainger, Rebecca Ahlbrand, Paul S. Horn, Neil M. Richtand -- Drug interactions and polypharmacy -- Jessica L. Gören, Ashley Tewksbury -- Preclinical and clinical investigation of antipsychotic polypharmacy: what is the evidence? -- Dimitrios Kontis, Eirini Theochari -- Should high dose or very long-term antipsychotic monotherapy be considered before antipsychotic polypharmacy? / Stephen M. Stahl, Debbi A. Morrissette -- Multiple medication use of neuropsychiatry in forensic psychiatry: findings from the Central State Forensic Psychiatric Hospital of Saxony-Anhalt / Joachim G. Witzel -- Augmentation strategies. Antipsychotic treatment within a naturalistic trial: how are we treating schizophrenia patients in the 'real-world"? / Rebecca Schennach, Michael Obermeier, Florian Seemüller, Daniela Krause, Richard Musil, Ilja Spellmann, Hans-Jürgen Möller, Michael Riedel -- A multi-target drug treatment in schizophrenia and schi…