Benefit of modern antipsychotics still withheld from forensic patients

*These authors contributed equally to this paper ·AGATE=Arbeitsgemeinschaft Arzneimitteltherapie bei psychiatrischen Erkrankungen To compare the associated risks of EPS for forensic and general psychiatric patients we analyzed the prescription data of 11 antipsychotics (AP) from 1258 forensic and 1178 non-forensic age-matched in-patients with schizophrenic (ICD 10 F20.*) or schizoaffective (F25.*) disease from 6 Bavarian Psychiatric Hospitals over the years 1997–2000. Prescription of biperiden was used as an index for the occurrence of EPS. Numerical Statistics were done by Chi-square testing and calculating the Odds Ratio (OR). Our results show that forensic patients are far more at risk for EPS than non-forensic patients even when treated with the same conventional neuroleptic. The only equally tolerated antipsychotics in both patient groups are the newer antipsychotics. Despite that fact most forensic psychiatrists are still reluctant to prescribe modern AP for forensic patients.