Rationale for continuity of treatment of psychotropic medicines in health system Review article

Abstract

Continuous administration of a particular drug is an important factor for effective treatment. Psychiatric patients should be constantly encouraged by psychiatrists but also by the national refunding system to use their medicines constantly. Any concerns that patients have might make them refuse to take a drug, lead to confusion or affect their adherence to the medicines. Psychiatric patients generally accept generic medicines, but are also stressed by constantly changing system of refunding drugs, including generic drugs. To implement generic substitution and generic prescribing successfully, it is important to offer a clear rules and guides on therapeutically interchangeable psychiatric products to help patients and healthcare professionals. The new problem is the phenomenon of generic drugs interchanging, when the patient’s access to his drug-of-choice is not protected by law. Is not acceptable to change “abruptly and easily” or delete some products from the refunding list of psychiatric medicines. That breaks the main rule, that the psychiatric treatment is heavily focused on stabilization.