Psychoactive Drug Use

Physical ill-health and psychotropic drug prescription – a review

“…The studies reviewed in this section have evaluated psychotropic drug prescription in populations of medical and surgical patients, and thus are not directly comparable with the community studies. Gottschalk et al (1971) surveyed psychotropic drug use in 48 randomly selected first-attenders at an American medical clinic. They found that 65 % of them were currently taking a psychotropic drug.…”

“…Johnson & Clift (1968), in a similar survey in Manchester, found that in 51 % of patients, the indication for starting the hypnotic was medical (as opposed to psychiatric), and that the biggest single indication was insomnia secondary to pain due to musculoskeletal disorders. Gottschalk et al (1971), in their study of psychotropic drug use in medical out-patients, found that 69 % of the psychotropic drugs (excluding analgesics and autonomic nervous system drugs) were sedatives and minor tranquillizers. A very similar figure (72%) was reported by Davidson et al (1975) and also by Greenblatt and his colleagues (1975) (68%).…”

A comparison of self‐injury and self‐poisoning from the Regional Poisoning Treatment Centre, Edinburgh

“…The pattern of selfpoisoning was linked to the availability of drugs (8,9) which, in the United Kingdom, were found to come largely from general practice (10,11). In the United States 60% of prescriptions for psychotropic medication were found to come from general practitioners or internists (12), though the pattern for use of such drugs may vary with age (13). The implications for primary prevention were clear (14).…”

Psychotropic drug utilization and audit in two Italian psychiatric services

“…In terms of the investigations listed in Table 1, the number of patients included in the present study was relatively small. However, the surveys of Gottschalk et al (1971), Winstead et al (1976), Morgan & Gopalaswamy (1984) and Schulz et al (1984) were smaller still, and the present sample represented about one-third of all the admissions to the Cremona psychiatric services during the year. The mental health services in Italy have undergone dramatic changes in recent years, but relatively few evaluative studies have been conducted .…”

“…Table 1 summarizes the most important studies on this topic. These studies indicate considerable variation in the extent to which these drugs are used; for example, the proportion of psychiatric patients receiving neuroleptics ranges from 8 % (Gottschalk et al 1971) to 97% (Laska et al 1973), and the proportion receiving benzodiazepines can be seen to range from 3% (Craig & Behar, 1980) to 68% (Greenblatt et al 1975).…”