College of Pharmacy, An-Najah University, Nablus, Palestine.

E-mail:[email protected], [email protected]

Received: (13/9/2003), Accepted: (2/3/2004)

Pattern of atypical and typical antipsychotic medications among one hundred and

twenty four patients receiving these medications was investigated and analyzed. Males

constitute approximately 61% of the sample. More than half of the patients in the

sample were less than 50 years old. Most the patients prescribed antipsychotic

medications were having schizophrenia (61%). Analysis of the prescribed

antipsychotics for the patients showed that approximately 99% of the patients were

receiving conventional typical antipsychotic medications either as single (70.2%) or

combination (17.7%) or in depot form (10.4%). Less than 2% of the patients were

receiving atypical antipsychotic medications. Among those prescribed conventional

typical antipsychotic drugs, only (56%) were co-prescribed anticholinergic drugs. The

underutilization of atypical antipsychotics and the underutilization of anticholinergics

to be co-prescribed with conventional antipsychotics require further evaluation and

investigation at the national Palestinian level.