PHILADELPHIA — A new study says Pennsylvania foster children are given psychotropic medications and antipsychotics at a far higher rate than other youth in the state.

The study says school-aged children in foster care use psychotropic drugs to treat mental and behavior disorders at nearly three times the overall rate for youth in the Medicaid system.

The study says the rate for antipsychotics drugs used for schizophrenia, bipolar, attention-deficit and other conditions was four times higher for foster children than other youth.

The findings were announced Tuesday by the state Department of Human Services and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

The state says it will offer telephone consulting to medical providers, update assessment tools and revise consent guidelines for prescribing and create an electronic dashboard to monitor psychotropic drug usage.

The study used state Medicaid data from the years 2007 through 2012.