Additional WHO recommendations include providing treatment at the primary care level, increasing the availability of psychotropic medicines, developing community-based care, training, recruiting and providing sufficient pay for professionals, and educating the general public on mental disorders (7).
However, to our knowledge none focuses on community-dwelling psychotropic drug users.
Thus, the physician's role in psychotropic drug use among community-dwelling older persons might best be modelled according to the duration of use.
The number of tablets sold to pharmacies per 1000 population in Ireland and Northern Ireland was calculated to give an indication of the availability of psychotropic drugs in the communities.
The prevalence of psychotropic drug use among community-dwelling older persons (usually defined as those 65 years and older) varies from about 20%to48%8% [ 3- 5].
In the many descriptive studies on prescribed psychotropic drug use by community-dwelling older persons, several sociodemographic and other factors associated with drug use receive inconsistent support.
To better understand the phenomenon of psychotropic drug use among community-dwelling elderly, it is desirable that historical, psychological, sociological, political and regulatory, as well as medical aspects of the phenomenon be considered.
Treating schizophrenia (USD$2,748 per DALY averted) and bipolar affective disorder (USD$2,551 per DALY averted) in the community using older psychotropic drugs paired with psychosocial care was more cost-effective than inpatient treatment (schizophrenia: USD$6,816 and bipolar affective disorder: USD$4,874 per DALY averted).
This study adopted a two-group pre- and post- with 6-month follow-up experimental design to examine the effectiveness of an art-based relapse prevention group compared with a cognitive behavioral relapse prevention group for young psychotropic substance abusers in a community-based outpatient service.
Key issues about the distribution of psychotropic medicines directly to primary care and community centres as well as regulations about the type of health care workers able to prescribe and dispense medications were not addressed.
