Prescription and management of psychotropic medication in Autism Spectrum Disorder: A preliminary review of practice

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) affects approximately 1 in 68 children in America. There is no cure for ASD however there are a limited number of effective treatments. Psychotropic medication has become an increasingly popular treatment for ASD. Between 35-57% of children with ASD in the U.S. are taking at least one psychotropic medication; many children are taking more than one. Despite awareness that multiple variables influence the reported use of psychotropic medication in ASD (e.g., symptom severity, age, gender, insurance type), and the growing body of literature addressing the effectiveness of psychotropic medication as a treatment for ASD, a considerable practice gap remains. Currently, very little is known about prescribing patterns within this population and therefore there is a need to understand how prescribing occurs. The purpose of this study was to investigate patient, environment, prescriber and information variables that influence the prescription and evaluation of psychotropic medication use in ASD. Comparisons between psychotropic medication usage data and prescriber data reported here highlighted that inferences about prescribing trends based on usage data should be made with caution. In addition to answering the research questions, these data revealed, for the first time, separate prescribing rates for core and related symptoms of ASD, and also data directly from the prescriber’s perspective.