Representatives from Holmusk recently attended the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy’s annual meeting to present two posters, including one study around antipsychotic prescribing from a study conducted in collaboration with external authors.

The study examined real-world prescribing patterns surrounding oral antipsychotics and long-acting injectables, across different transitions of care. The study generated new insights on prescribing patterns of medication before, during and after a psychiatric hospitalization.

Researchers used Holmusk’s NeuroBlu Database, the behavioral health industry’s leading source for rich real-world data, to derive a cohort of over 1,000 patients with schizophrenia who initiated a long-acting injectable while in the hospital. The study then followed patients for three or more months to assess any changes to their treatment, how long they continued their treatment for, and patterns of post-discharge healthcare resource utilization.

The study resulted in several key findings, including:

-Despite nearly half of patients being prescribed an oral antipsychotic in addition to a long-acting injectable upon hospital discharge, patients taking only a long-acting injectable had better outcomes than those taking both types of antipsychotics (when observed for three months or longer).

-Guidelines set forth by the American Psychiatric Association recommend that patients who show improvement on an oral antipsychotic be prescribed the same type of antipsychotic in the form of a long-acting injectable. However, real-world prescribing patterns may not adhere to these guidelines, as the most prescribed oral antipsychotic differed from the most prescribed long-acting injectable.

-Patients may benefit from less frequent dosing, as patients taking long-acting injectables dosed once monthly or less often showed better adherence and persistence than those with more frequent dosages.

“We are pleased we had the opportunity to leverage NeuroBlu to shed new light on outcomes for patients who are taking long-acting injectables,” said Mayowa Oyensanya, MD, a clinical research scientist at Holmusk. “Our findings serve to further highlight the need for continued use of real-world data to better understand how care is actually delivered, which can in turn inform care in the future. Only through analysis of the rich and detailed real-world data found in the NeuroBlu Database can we begin to reveal where routine care delivery differs from a traditional study setting or from official clinical guidelines.”

View the poster here.