| Abstract |
Aim: Many studies were conducted after the Global Economic Crisis of 2008 in order to depict the consequences of the economic recession in mental health. They mainly aimed to find correlations between the financial downturn and stress, depression or other mental disorders and psychotropic drug use, while others researched on suicidality or suicidal ideation. The aim of this study is to evaluate the psychotropic drug consumption and/or the consumption of other supplements (e.g. valeriana), with or without medical prescription among the economically disadvantaged individuals. Furthermore, the following socio-demographic characteristics like gender, unemployment or family status were associated with perceived stress, self-efficacy and emotional “discomfort”. An interesting key point is that the present study tried to assess the existence of psychotropic drugs or supplements in the medicine cabinet in the home of the participants.
Methodology: The study follows an observational cross-sectional design. The population of the study is all the registered adult population of the 4th Local Healthcare Unit (TOMY: in Greek) of Heraklion. The participants had to be fluent in Greek and over 18 years old. The study sample was 263 participants and the data were collected within fifteen working days during October 2020. A questionnaire with socio-demographic data was designed for the data collection, which also included questions regarding the consumption of psychotropic drugs and/or supplements, buying habits, living expenses, and sleeping and smoking habits. Moreover, the following scales were used: a) Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), b) General Self-efficacy Scale (GSE), and c) Emotional “Discomfort” Scale (Emo D).
Results: The participants stated that they had a prescription of psychotropic drugs were 26.6% (CI 21.6%-32.3%; n=70) and 38,4% (CI 32.7%-44.5%; n=101) had psychotropic drugs/supplements in their medicine cabinet. Furthermore, 27.4% (CI 22.3%-33.1%; n=72) of the participants used psychotropic drugs/supplements without medical prescription. It was not found statistical significance between every correlation but it was observed that the percentage of welfare allowance recipients who are prescribed with psychotropic drugs is 38.8% (CI 26.2%-53%; n=19) while the percentage among non-recipients drops to 23.8% (CI 18.6%-30%; n=51; p=0.034). Additionally, the percentage of individuals without insurance who declared the existence of psychotropic drugs/supplements in the medicine cabinet, is 60% (n=27) while the percentage among the insured is 33.9% (n=74; p=0.001). Participants who had received psychotropic drugs/supplements without a medical prescription had a higher PSS score (mean=29.15; SD= 6.44), than those who had never used these drugs (mean=23.83; SD= 7.84). Regarding the GSE, those who answered positively in the aforementioned (about the use of psychotropic drugs/supplements) question marked a mean score of 26.89 (SD=5.59) while those who gave a negative answer scored higher (mean=29.76; SD=4.87). Consequently, there is an indication that those two scales show a reversed association between them.
Conclusions: The present study points out that people without insurance, unemployed, welfare allowance recipients, smokers, people who limited their living expenses, individuals with disturbed sleep and those having difficulties to fall asleep have an indication of higher rates in use of psychotropic drugs/supplements. According to the aforementioned, it is evident that mental health professionals and Primary Health Care can play a significant role in order to recognize, treat, follow-up and refer these kind of cases. Apart from that, it is important for a professional to be able to recognize the signs of stress and the level of self-efficacy in the beneficiaries in order to prevent the psychotropic drugs/supplements use, whenever it is possible. Further and constant training of the health personnel is important in order to achieve the above. The need for a multidisciplinary approach which emphasizes in the role of the health team is pointed out in order to cover holistically the beneficiaries’ needs, in the Primary Health Care level.
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Συγχρονική μελέτη για την ανίχνευση της σχέσης μεταξύ της χρήσης ψυχοτρόπων φαρμάκων και της κοινωνικό- οικονομικής κατάστασης σε συνάρτηση με το αντιλαμβανόμενο στρες τη γενικευμένη αυτό- αποτελεσματικότητα και τη συναισθηματική “δυσφορία”,, στους ωφελούμενους της 4ης ΤΟΜΥ Ηρακλείου
