Antipsychotic medication prescribing in long-term care facilities increased in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic ASPE issue brief Oliveira, Iara, author. Bianco, Martin, author. Ali, Mir M. (Health economist) author. COVID-19 Antipsychotic Agents -- therapeutic use Inappropriate Prescribing -- trends Long-Term Care Nursing Homes Prescriptions dispensed for antipsychotics in nursing homes and assisted living facilities increased since the beginning of the pandemic, with 20.8 million dispensed in 2020 compared to 20.5 million in 2019. This represents a 1.5% increase in total prescriptions since the beginning of the pandemic despite lower resident census levels in long-term care facilities (LTCFs). In 2020, the highest increase in the number of prescriptions dispensed occurred during the first quarter of the pandemic, with an increase of 7.4% compared to the first quarter of 2019. After this initial increase, the quarterly number of prescriptions for antipsychotic medications dropped close to pre-pandemic levels, despite a declining nursing home resident census and likely a declining LTCF resident census overall. The number of prescriptions dispensed for four out of the five most frequently prescribed antipsychotics in LTCFs increased in both 2020 and 2021 compared to pre-pandemic levels. Aripiprazole had the largest increase, of 14% in the first quarter of 2020 compared to 2019 levels. Washington, D.C. : Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, March 8, 2022 United States. Department of Health and Human Services. Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, issuing body. Technical Report Text Illustrations 1 online resource (1 PDF file (14 pages)) nlm:nlmuid-9918539487606676-pdf 9918539487606676 http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/9918539487606676 English United States The National Library of Medicine believes this item to be in the public domain. https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0