Lithium prescription trends in psychiatric inpatient care 2014 to 2021: data from a Bavarian drug surveillance project

International Journal of Bipolar Disorders

Table 3 Lithium prescription in young women, older adults and comorbid substance use disorder

	Bipolar disorder	Unipolar depression	Schizophrenia	Schizoaffective disorder
Women under 41 years	174/495 35.2%	230/6298 3.7%	48/1834 2.6%	119/728 16.3%
Men under 41 years	144/407 35.4%	178/4690 3.8%	87/4368 2.0%	74/488 15.2%
RR with 95% CI	0.99 (0.83 to 1.19)	0.96 (0.79 to 1.17)	1.31 (0.93 to 1.86)	1.31 (0.93 to 1.86)
Older than 65 years	221/941 23.5%	290/6208 4.7%	11/1257 0.9%	76/621 12.2%
65 and younger	1121/3344 33.5%	1257/27356 4.6%	325/12652 2.5%	621/3933 15.8%
RR with 95% CI	0.70 (0.62 to 0.79)	1.02 (0.90 to 1.15)	0.34 (0.19 to 0.62)	0.78 (0.62 to 0.97)
Comorbid substance use disorder	166/576 28.8%	184/5077 3.6%	57/2360 2.4%	70/542 12.9%
No comorbid substance use disorder	1178/3716 31.7%	1364/28531 4.8%	279/11555 2.4%	627/4014 15.6%
RR with 95% CI	0.91 (0.79 to 1.04)	0.76 (0.65 to 0.88)	1.00 (0.75 to 1.33)	0.83 (0.66 to 1.04)

Absolute and relative prescription numbers of Li, along with calculated Relative Risks and 95% CI in women under 41 vs. men under 41, patients older than 65 years vs. patients 65 and younger and patients with comorbid substance abuse disorder vs. patients without comorbid substance abuse disorder. Diagnosis groups are defined by three-character code of International Classification of Disease in its 10th Version, German Modification (ICD-10-GM): Bipolar disorder: F31, Unipolar depression: F32 + F33, Schizophrenia: F20, Schizoaffective disorder: F25 Comorbid substance abuse disorder was defined by ICD-10-diagnosis of mental and behavioral disorders due to psychoactive substance use, excluding tobacco use (F10-F19, excluding F17)