Metabolic Monitoring: Who Gets It?

In February 2004, the American Diabetes Association collaborated with associations of psychiatrists, endocrinologists, and obesity researchers on a consensus statement on plasma glucose and lipid testing for patients receiving atypical antipsychotics (Diabetes Care 2004; 27:596). They issued guidelines recommending glucose and lipid testing before treatment initiation and 12 weeks later. To compare monitoring of glucose and lipids before publication of these guidelines (July 2000–September 2003) and afterward (March 2004–November 2006), researchers retrospectively examined data from a large managed care database.

The 5787 pre-guideline and 17,832 post-guideline subjects were prescribed aripiprazole, olanzapine, quetiapine, risperidone, or zi…