Prescribing Psychotropic Drugs Outside Psychiatric Services

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the prescribing behavior of psychotropic drugs in non-psychiatric doctors, in the military hospitals of the south zone. The study was conducted over a six-month period, from May to October 2017, with a sample of 48 physicians from different disciplines and various medico-surgical services from the three hospitals. Physicians responded to an anonymous questionnaire mainly on the main drug classes prescribed psychotropic drugs, the main indications, and their frequency of prescription. The majority of physicians involved in all specialties are prescribers at variable rates. The rate of prescribers among neurologists, cardiologists, dermatologists, anesthesiologists, neurosurgeons, visceral surgeons and urologists was 100% while emergency physicians had a rate of 88.8%. In traumatologists, the rate was 75%. For ophthalmologists the rate was 50%. The rest of the specialties prescribed with a rate of less than 50%. The main psychotropic drugs prescribed were antidepressants and hypnotic / anxiolytic benzodiazepines, while the main indications were depression, anxiety disorders, insomnia and agitation. Virtually 44% of these prescribers were the initiators of treatment, and more than half of the presenters indicated that their knowledge of psychotropic drugs was limited to the therapeutic courses they received during their general medical training at the Faculty of Medicine. It is necessary to grant more hours to therapeutic courses at the faculties of medicine and pharmacy and to establish a compulsory continuing education for every doctor in the field of therapeutics and particularly that of psychotropic drugs, in order to ensure the respect of prescription rules for psychotropic drugs.