Institute for Pharmacovigilance in Psychiatry, AMSP e.V.

The AMSP-Institute for Pharmacovigilance in Psychiatry (Arzneimittelsicherheit in der Psychiatrie) is a drug safety program. It assesses severe adverse reactions to all marketed psychotropic drugs in the naturalistic setting of routine clinical treatment of psychiatric inpatients. For AMSP purposes,psychotropic drugs also include neurologic drugs such as anticonvulsants and antiparkinson drugs. > 100 psychiatric hospitals in Germany,Switzerland and Austria have participated in the program from 1993 up to now. Physicians working in the hospitals systematically record severe adverse events,i.e. those that are (potentially) life-threatening or seriously endanger the patient‘s health,or considerably impair everyday functioning,or require the patient‘s transfer to another department or ward providing more intensive care. The ongoing project started in 1993.