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Brand: Stelazine
Published 2026-02-15 · Last reviewed 2026-02-22 · 4 references
Content sourced from FDA labeling (DailyMed) and peer-reviewed literature.
Trifluoperazine is a high-potency phenothiazine FGA used for psychotic disorders. The label also includes short-term treatment of generalized non-psychotic anxiety, with explicit duration and dose limits (label).
The label reports that anxiety efficacy was established in a four-week multicenter outpatient study in generalized anxiety disorder (DSM-III), and cautions that this evidence does not predict usefulness in other non-psychotic conditions where anxiety-like symptoms can occur (label).
Because it is high potency, movement-disorder risk (EPS and tardive dyskinesia) is often the most clinically important tolerability constraint; this can be especially relevant when it is used outside psychosis care for anxiety (label/clinical).
As with all antipsychotics, the class boxed warning for increased mortality in elderly patients with dementia-related psychosis applies (label).
The trifluoperazine compare view, evidence feed, and print page support shared decision-making about symptom targets vs adverse effects.
Trifluoperazine’s anxiety indication is uncommon in modern practice because many alternative anxiolytics do not carry antipsychotic-class risks. When it is used, the label’s explicit dose and duration limits are typically treated as “guardrails” (label/clinical).
View labelExactRefer to the Glossary entry on Neurotransmitters for background on receptor systems involved in serious mental illness.
Dopamine D2 receptor antagonism is the primary antipsychotic mechanism.
Relative “high potency” is associated with higher EPS risk at clinical doses.