Foster care children who engage in challenging behavior are likely to receive psychotropic medication as the primary intervention to reduce their behavior. These children are more likely to receive multiple psychotropic medications from the same class or three or more medications to treat a given behavioral condition, a practice called polypharmacy. In response to this practice, federal legislation mandated states to monitor psychotropic medication prescriptions to foster care children. Consequently, the Deputy Director of the Alabama Department of Human Resources proposed the development of a behavioral health professional team, collectively known as the Alabama Psychiatric Medication Review Team (APMRT). The APMRT was tasked with developing application and safety guidelines for prescribers and determining the extent to which behavioral interventions are a cost-effective alternative for managing problem behavior. This paper briefly outlines APMRT’s general strategies, describes the team members’ roles, and discusses future directions.

中文翻译：

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阿拉巴马州精神病药物审查小组 (APMRT)：倡导寄养儿童

从事具有挑战性行为的寄养儿童可能会接受精神药物作为减少其行为的主要干预措施。这些儿童更有可能接受来自同一班级的多种精神药物或三种或更多药物来治疗特定的行为状况，这种做法称为多药治疗。针对这种做法，联邦立法要求各州监督寄养儿童的精神药物处方。因此，阿拉巴马州人力资源部副主任提议建立一个行为健康专业团队，统称为阿拉巴马州精神病药物审查小组（APMRT）。APMRT 的任务是为开处方者制定应用程序和安全指南，并确定行为干预在多大程度上是管理问题行为的具有成本效益的替代方案。本文简要概述了 APMRT 的一般策略，描述了团队成员的角色，并讨论了未来的方向。