Psychiatrists' responsibilities with regards to patients' fitness to drive

Mental health conditions and the risk of road traffic accidents

“…A study from the United Kingdom exploring whether the mental health practitioners were assessing their patients’ fitness-to-drive and addressing the issue as guided by the relevant agencies and legislation found that there was a poor compliance with the standards among assessing clinicians. [6] Another study exploring the practices of Canadian psychiatrists regarding fitness-to-drive in individuals with mental illness found that only 18.0% of respondents were always aware of whether their patients were active drivers. [7] The above study results indicate that there is a clear need for education and guidelines to assist psychiatrists in decision making about driving fitness.…”

Age is a number, not a group

“…The July–September 2016 issue of the Indian J Psychiatry carried eight original articles. Of these, one[ 1 ] provided only a range of values for the age of the participants, and another[ 2 ] provided no description of the sample, at all. These are serious limitations of a manuscript because, without descriptive information about the sample, readers cannot know to what population the results of a study may be generalized.…”