Long-Stay Mood Stabilizer Use Increasing as Prescription of Antipsychotics Decreases

This retrospective cohort analysis of claims data used logistic regression to evaluate change in antipsychotic and antiepileptic mood stabilizer prescription frequencies in Virginia nursing homes among residents with and without seizure-epilepsy between the years 2011 and 2016. Over that period, prescription of antipsychotics decreased 13.1% to 5.6% in the long-stay population, while the use of antiepileptic mood stabilizers increased significantly 27.0%, to an 8.6% prevalence rate. These gains were entirely among residents without epilepsy. African-Americans and males were at significantly increased risk for the prescription of mood stabilizers. Growth in long-stay antiepileptic mood stabilizer use is unrelated to seizure-epilepsy, as these changes in prescription occurred only among residents without seizure-epilepsy. More antiepileptic mood stabilizers are now being prescribed to nursing-home residents without epilepsy than antipsychotics in the nursing-home population overall.