Addiction on prescribed sedative-hypnotics

✍ Scribed by Christer Allgulander

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1996
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 573 KB
• Volume: 11
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0885-6222
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1099-1077(199602)11:1+<s49::aid-hup752>3.0.co;2-m

✦ Synopsis

This paper reviews the conceptualization of addiction on prescribed sedative-hypnotics medications; its evolution, occurrence, characteristics and validity. Such addictive behaviour is often concurrent with severe anxiety and/or personality disorders and follows a dismal course. The rate of suicide is very high, particularly in health care personnel with access to lethal medications. The risk of developing this kind of addiction is miniscule, considering the mass exposure to these medications in the general population. Yet, moralizing arguments amplified by the media, as well as overzealous government interventions create unnecessary obstacles to proper and effective pharmacotherapy for morbid anxiety and insomnia.