Utilization of psychiatric drugs in Serbia Upotreba psihofarmaka u Srbiji

Drug utilization has been defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as the „marketing, distribution, prescription and the use of drugs in a society, with a special emphasis on the resulting medical, social, and economic consequences“ . Drug utilization studies are usually aimed at drug use-related problem detection and quantification. These studies may be quantitative (with the objective to quantify drug usage at various levels of health-care system), or qualitative (L) (which assess the appropriateness of drug utilization) 2, . Utilization of psychiatric drugs is often a subject of drug utilization studies. Increasing researchers’ interest in prescribing and utilization of psychiatric drugs is noted worldwide . It is understandable, bearing in mind that these drugs are, maybe more than other pharmacotherapeutic groups, related to different epidemiologic, social and economic variables. It is usually a high rate of prescribing of certain psychiatric drugs, as well as selfmedication (e.g. with benzodiazepines) that causes concern, as well as the consequences of such practice: development of tolerance and addiction, drug abuse, and increased treatment costs. Over the last decade in Serbia several drug utilization studies on the usage of psychiatric drugs have been conducted. These studies have addressed certain major issues: drug use patterns, prescribing behavior, gaps between guidelines and actual utilization and factors responsible for polypharmacy. Both, quantitative and qualitative aspects of psychiatric drugs use have been analysed using up-to-date methodology. Such a modern methodological approach enables comparison of the data from Serbian studies with the data from other countries, thus pointing out certain prescribers’ habits and/or patients’ preferences that are characteristic for our milieu.