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Maintenance doses for clozapine

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Bernadette Murphy ,
Colm Long  and
Carol Paton
Bernadette Murphy
Affiliation:
Oxleas NHS Trust, Bexley Hospital, Old Bexley Lane, Bexley, Kent DA5 2BW
Colm Long
Affiliation:
Oxleas NHS Trust, Bexley Hospital, Old Bexley Lane, Bexley, Kent DA5 2BW
Carol Paton*
Affiliation:
Oxleas NHS Trust, Bexley Hospital, Old Bexley Lane, Bexley, Kent DA5 2BW
*
∗Correspondence
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Abstract

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The British National Formulary (BNF) entry for clozapine clearly distinguishes the treatment dose (200–450 mg daily, maximum 900 mg) from the maintenance dose (150–300 mg daily). We looked at 44 patients maintained on clozapine locally and found that 36 (82%) received doses above the BNF guidelines. This has considerable cost implications. While it is always good practice to maintain patients on the lowest possible dose of antipsychotic, the BNF guidelines are not based on objective outcome data, and should be treated cautiously.

Type
Original Papers
Information
Psychiatric Bulletin , Volume 22 , Issue 1 , January 1998 , pp. 12 - 14
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © 1998 The Royal College of Psychiatrists

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