OBJECTIVES To describe and compare temporal changes in prevalence and incidence of psychotropic use (antipsychotics, antidepressants and benzodiazepines and related drugs; BZDRs) in persons with newly diagnosed Alzheimer's disease (AD) between university hospital districts of Finland during 2005-2011. METHODS The MEDALZ study includes all community-dwellers of Finland who received a clinicall...

OBJECTIVE Although there is a global concern about the increased use of psychotropic agents in children, most research literature originates in the United States and is based on figures from the first half of the 1990s. Also, few studies document the use of various types of psychotropic agents. The objective of this study was to investigate the use of psychotropic medication in children in the ...

BACKGROUND There is evidence that medical students are more aware of the benefits of psychotropic treatment than are members of the general public, and that the more knowledge students acquire about psychiatry and pharmacology, the more favorable their attitudes become towards psychotropic drugs and other treatments. OBJECTIVES This study among students investigates the relationship between c...

OBJECTIVE To describe, analyze, and interpret patterns of psychotropic drug prescribing in new psychiatric patients attending psychiatric outpatient clinics in the Caribbean island of Trinidad. DESIGN AND METHODS This was a cross-sectional study of psychotropic drug prescribing by psychiatrists for 132 new psychiatric outpatients who were seen at the outpatient clinics surveyed and who were e...

OBJECTIVES Mental illness and psychotropic drugs have been linked with workplace injury, but few studies have measured exposures and outcomes independently or established their relative timings. To address this shortcoming, we conducted a case-control study nested within a database prospectively recording injury consultations, diagnoses and drug prescriptions. METHODS The Clinical Practice Re...

Of 230 adults admitted for self poisoning over two months, 153 (67%) had previously been taking a total of 309 prescribed drugs. Of these patients, 119 (78%) had been given psychotropic drugs (usually benzodiazepines), 81 (53%) obtained them on repeat prescription, and 47 (31%) had been prescribed multiple psychotropic drugs, often in seemingly illogical combinations. The use of these drugs inc...

The interaction between the cognitive component (the perception of nociceptive, or painful stimuli) and the affective component of pain is reflected in the overlap between the actions of anti-nociceptive agents (analgesics) and mood-altering drugs (psychotropics) when treating pain patients. Anxiety, depression, fear and sleeplessness may all respond to psychotropic drugs, and this may result i...