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Objectives: To analyze the characteristics of publications on the project “Research on East Asia Psychotropic Prescriptions”(REAP).

Methods: Data were retrieved from the Web of Science and the data analyses were performed using R and VOSviewer.

Results: 72 publications with 994 citations were identified from 2004 to 2022. The average number of citations per year was 52.32. There were 18 countries/territories involved in this project, with the top three productive countries/territories being Japan (70; 97.22%), China (63; 87.5%), and Singapore (60; 83.33%). China and Japan cooperated the most (62; 86.11%). The publications were published in 31 journals with the impact factors ranging from 1.06 to 18.11 (median=3.22), including psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences (7; 9.72%), Asia-Pacific Psychiatry (6; 8.33%), and Pharmacopsychiatry (5; 6.94%). Research areas of the publications mainly focused on Psychiatry (58; 80.56%), Pharmacology Pharmacy (26; 36.11%), and Clinical Neurology (16; 22.22%). The most productive institutions were the National University of Singapore (67; 93.06%), Chang Gung University (61; 84.72%), Chinese University of Hong Kong (46; 63.89%) and Peking University (46; 63.89%). Of the 193 authors, Shinfuku N (70; 97.22), Tan CH (59; 81.94%) and Chong MY (53; 73.61%) contributed the most publications. “East-Asia” (23; 31.9%), “Inpatient” (12; 16.67%) and “Polypharmacy” (11; 15.28%) were the most frequently used keywords, while Schizophrenia (9; 12.5%), Depression (9; 12.5%) and Anxiety (3; 4.17%) were the most frequently discussed psychiatric diagnoses.

Conclusions: The REAP project has a great influence on the academic communities, particularly in the fields of Psychiatry and Pharmacology / Pharmacy.

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Introduction: After extensive research, this study explored whether high-dose prescriptions and polypharmacy remain more frequent in Japan than elsewhere. If confirmed, we aimed to identify the factors that contributed to this unique trend.

Methods: The psychotropic drug prescription patterns for patients with schizophrenia in Japan were reviewed. This was based on a large sample collected from surveys of the Research on Asian Psychotropic Prescription Patterns (REAP), an international collaborative research project conducted by Asian psychiatrists to monitor prescriptions of psychotropic drugs for people with mental disorders, in 2001, 2004, 2008, and 2016.

In total, more than 10,000 prescriptions of patients with schizophrenia were collected and analyzed.

Results: The 2016 Research on Asian Psychotropic Prescription Patterns survey revealed that Japan continued to demonstrate the highest rate of polypharmacy and the highest dosages of psychotropic prescription drugs for patients with schizophrenia among 15 countries and areas that participated in the survey.

Discussion: The Research on Asian Psychotropic Prescription Patterns surveys demonstrated that science plays a limited role in the decision-making process for prescriptions of psychotropic medications. Such prescriptions are influenced by a wide range of factors, such as the national mental health policy, prescription financing systems, the history of psychiatry in each country, and the prevailing culture. Hospital-based national mental health policies and mental health financing systems have been the primary obstacles to reducing polypharmacy in Japan.