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Pediatricians are often in a position to monitor and renew prescriptions for second-generation antipsychotic medications prescribed by psychiatrists. Currently, these medications include clozapine, olanzapine, quetiapine, and risperidone. However, the FDA has not approved their use in children. To examine national trends in outpatient antipsychotic treatment of children and adolescents, researchers used data from an annual survey of a nationally representative sample of visits to office-based physicians.
The estimated number of office visits by children and adolescents (younger than 21) that included antipsychotic medications increased about sixfold, from 201,000 in 1993 to 1,224,000 in 2002. From 2000 to 2002, 92% of visits that involved pr…