ABSTRACT:
Objective: The study assessed the efficacy of typical and atypical antipsychotics as combination therapy with mood stabilizers in the treatment of acute mania in a tertiary care hospital in Salem District of Tamil Nadu. Method: A retrospective observational study was carried out among 52 acute mania patients who received combination therapy with either atypical antipsychotics or typical antipsychotics with mood stabilizers. The primary efficacy measures were severity and improvement score with Clinical Global Impression scale (CGI) and Extrapyramidal side effects (EPS). Results: The study was conducted in 52 acute mania patients, in which 31 patients treated with atypical antipsychotics + mood stabilizers and 21 patients treated with typical antipsychotics + mood stabilizers. On analyzing the patients with the CGI-S scale, patients treated with atypical antipsychotics and mood stabilizers showed a significant reduction in the severity. Further, when analyzing with CGI-I Scale and EPS, it showed significant improvement in the clinical condition and less EPS in the patients treated with atypical antipsychotics with mood stabilizers. Conclusion: Atypical antipsychotics can be considered as the first choice for combination therapy with a mood stabilizer for the treatment of acute mania compared to typical antipsychotics due to their better efficacy, less extrapyramidal side-effects and shortens the duration of hospital stay.