ArticleBMC medicine2025
Effect of discontinuing antipsychotic medications on the risk of hospitalization in long-term care: a machine learning-based analysis.
Article in BMC medicine, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
12 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundAntipsychotic medications are frequently prescribed to older residents of long-term care facilities (LTCFs) despite their limited efficacy and considerable safety risks. While discontinuation of these drugs might help reduce their associated morbidity, the impact of stopping antipsychotics on the risk of hospitalization has not been studied yet. The study aimed at estimating the effect of antipsychotic discontinuation on the risk of hospitalization in older LTCF residents and at identifying relevant factors influencing such effect.
methodsFor this registry-based retrospective cohort study, data from a cohort of older LTCF residents in Finland from the years 2014 to 2018 was analyzed. Data sources were the Resident Assessment Instrument for Long-Term Care (RAI-LTC) based comprehensive geriatric assessments and the Finnish Care Register for Health Care. For the initial cohort, 5467 users of antipsychotic medications with at least four assessments, each conducted 6 months apart, were selected. Residents were defined either as discontinuing, if antipsychotics were prescribed at the first two assessments but not at the last two, or as chronic users, if antipsychotics were prescribed at all four assessments. Causal machine learning (ML) methods including double machine learning (DML), double robust (DR), X-learner, and causal forest (CF) were applied to estimate the effect of antipsychotic discontinuation on the risk of hospitalization and to identify factors influencing such effect. The follow-up time was 1 year. The methods of SHAP values (SHapley Additive exPlanations), partial dependence plots (PDP), and surrogate models were used for model interpretation.
resultsNearly 43% of residents in the study discontinued antipsychotic medications. Antipsychotic discontinuation lowered the probability of hospitalization of about 12% (average treatment effect, ATE). The individual treatment effect (ITE) estimations ranged from - 30% to + 1%. The use of restraints, age, and functional impairment were relevant variables in all ITE models in influencing the predicted ITE.
conclusionsAntipsychotic discontinuation may decrease the likelihood of hospitalization among older LTCF residents, benefiting most users of these drugs. Promoting antipsychotic discontinuation may prevent hospitalizations and reduce morbidity and mortality in long-term care.
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