Characteristics and Mortality Among Hospitalized Patients Treated with Intramuscular Antipsychotics: Analysis of a United States Hospital Database

Mortality rates across matched cohorts of hospitalized patients treated with IM olanzapine, haloperidol, and/or ziprasidone in a hospital database were compared. Using propensity score matching, matched cohorts of IM olanzapine- (N=2,984) and IM haloperidol-treated patients (N=2,984) and IM olanzapine- (N=2,876) and IM ziprasidone-treated patients (N=2,876) were obtained. The study outcome was in-hospital death within 2 days of administering IM antipsychotic. Incidence of death was not statistically different between olanzapine-ziprasidone cohorts (OR=1.21, 95% CI 0.92-1.59). The olanzapine cohort demonstrated a significantly lower death incidence than the haloperidol cohort (OR=0.73, 95% CI 0.57-0.93; p=.011). The results suggest that patients treated with IM olanzapine do not have a significantly greater risk of death than patients treated with IM haloperidol or IM ziprasidone.