Il consumo di psicofarmaci aumenta rapidamente, lo mostra uno studio condotto a Saskatchewan, Canada. Circa l'8% della popolazione di Saskatchewan riceve la prescrizione di almeno una droga psicotropica nel 1983, percentuale che aumenta al 13% nel 2007. Fotografia: Postmedia News. Fonte: http://www.canada.com.
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Use of psychiatric drugs increasing substantially, Saskatchewan study shows. About eight per cent of the Saskatchewan population received at least one prescription for a psychotropic in 1983, increasing to 13 per cent in 2007. Photograph by: File photo , Postmedia News. Source: http://www.canada.com.
The number of people being medicated with mood-altering, psychiatric drugs is rising sharply, a new Canadian study shows.
Researchers who tracked “psychotropic” drug use in Saskatchewan over a 24-year period found that the proportion of the population that received at least one prescription for a psychiatric drug increased 54 per cent between 1983 and 2007.
The rate of drug use increased among all age groups, women consistently received more medications than men and the number of people on multiple classes of drugs increased dramatically, the study found.
What isn’t clear is whether the population is any mentally healthier for it, researchers from the University of Saskatchewan and Ottawa’s Montfort Hospital write in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry.
The study involved a full spectrum of drugs — 62 in all — used to treat mental disorders, including anti-depressants, anti-psychotics, mood stabilizers and stimulants. Data was drawn from a prescription drug database run by the province’s health ministry that covers Saskatchewan residents eligible for provincial drug benefits. The “Saskatchewan-covered” population remained mostly unchanged — around one million people — throughout the study period.
Family doctors were the major prescribers, “and their prescriptions significantly increased during the 24-year period,” Xiangfei Meng and her co-authors write.
About eight per cent of the Saskatchewan population received at least one prescription for a psychotropic in 1983, increasing to 13 per cent in 2007.
Women and seniors aged 70 and older were the heaviest users, and the proportion of patients receiving multiple different drugs in a given year increased from 56 per cent to 74 per cent.
The study “clearly demonstrates the increasing role of psychotropics in medical treatment,” the researchers write. Most of the increase is being driven by anti-depressants, with prescriptions for the drugs more than doubling over the study period.
“A central question remains as to whether the overall mental health of the population of the province has improved as a result of the increasing use of psychotropics,” the researchers said.
“We’re prescribing far more psychotropic drugs — particularly antidepressants — and they’re being largely prescribed by general practitioners,” said co-author Carl D’Arcy, professor and director of applied research/psychiatry at Royal University Hospital in Saskatoon.
Critics have said that family doctors often receive little training in the use of psychiatric drugs, beyond what drug sales reps have told them.
“The other question is, are drug treatments the most effective way of dealing with these problems?” D’Arcy said.
The study involved Saskatchewan only; it’s not clear whether the results could be extrapolated to the rest of Canada, though D’Arcy said he has no reason to believe that the findings would be different in other provinces.
Last year, more than 74 million prescriptions worth $2.6 billion were filled for psychiatric drugs in Canada — more than 203,000 prescriptions a day, and up from 58 million prescriptions in total in 2008, according to prescription drug research firm IMS Brogan.
Experts have expressed alarm at what some see as a spree in prescribing driven by aggressive drug company marketing and overzealous prescribing of pills that, in many cases, are being used for conditions for which they have never been formally approved.
The rise in prescribing in Saskatchewan in the late 1990s could be due to the introduction of new drugs and more home-based supports that allow people with mental illness to stay home longer, the researchers said — as well as successful marketing campaigns that “had no doubt” increased antidepressant use.
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