THE CONNECTION BETWEEN SYMPTOMATICS AND D IAGNOSIS IN PHARMACOTHERAPEUTIC DECISION-MAKING

Evaluation of influence of psychopathological symptoms (AMDP System) a nd diagnosis (ICD-9) on the choice of drug therapy (neuroleptics or an tidepressants) for psychiatric in-patients was the aim of this work. S tatistical analysis of 3745 patients led to three different decision-m aking procedures. These procedures are based on symptoms or diagnoses alone or on both symptoms and diagnosis. CART-Analysis was used for st atistical analysis. Reclassification errors for neuroleptics were alwa ys larger than reclassification errors for antidepressants. The result s show that both symptoms (error neuroleptics 20.2%, respectively anti depressants 15.0%) and diagnosis (20.8%, resp. 11.9%) alone are not su fficient to explain the choice of drug therapy. Lowest error rates wer e gained in a hierarchical model for the choice of drug treatment wher e both diagnosis and symptoms were used (17.1%, resp. 10.1%).