Antipsychotics used to manage autism and intellectual disability behaviour can have serious side effects – new study

Antipsychotic medication is typically licensed in the UK for people with serious mental health conditions, such as schizophrenia.

• Sinead Brophy
• The Conversation

But in recent years, some antipsychotic drugs have been prescribed more and more “off label”.

That is, for a condition for which they do not have approval from the medicines regulatory agency to treat.

Off label prescribing can be done under certain circumstances, such as when the prescriber believes it is in a patient’s best interests.

For example, antipsychotics are also used to manage behaviour in people with intellectual disabilities and autism.

As these drugs…

• Antipsychotics used to…