Antipsychotics and Aggression

Second Thoughts About Antipsychotics for Aggression by Shirley S. Wang

A recent study that found antipsychotics weren’t any better than sugar pills in reducing aggressive behavior among people with low IQs fanned the controversy over the broad use of antipsychotic drugs to treat patients with problems other than psychosis.
It wasn’t that the drugs failed outright. Haldol and Risperdal, both from J&J, reduced aggression in patients by 65% and 58%, respectively. But placebos cut aggressive behavior by 79%, the study published in the Lancet showed.
Before working at a large psychiatric hospital last year, I didn’t realize just how commonly antipsychotics are prescribed for a variety of psychiatric disorders. On one inpatient unit, I heard Eli Lilly’s Zyprexa being prescribed so often for symptoms such as anxiety that I remember feeling surprised when I finally learned that it was an antipsychotic.