The study, carried out in Andalusia, Madrid and the Basque Country, has intended to describe the experience of women who had been prescribed with psychotropic drugs (antidepressants, tranquillizers or sleeping pills), and professionals in Primary Health Care and Psychiatry who prescribe them. Certain stereotypes recur in both cases, and the research team associates it with sex social construction. “I think it has something to do with the construction of an image of women as weak, passive and dependant beings and with certain unspecified pathologies”, holds Nuria Romo.
“In medical environment, women are considered as to be in need of medication due to the question of discomfort”, the researcher explains. According to her, there is a previous model which passes on among sanitary professionals and, in unspecified situations expressed by women (where there is not a clear pathology), tends to prescribe psychotropic drugs. These situations have to do with vital circumstances that cause uneasiness, the kind of discomfort usually diagnosed as “anxiety” with the respective psychotropic drug treatment.
Discomfort
Wome attribute discomfort and psychotropic drug consumption to family conflicts, work stress, an important exam or the loss of faith in themselves. The variety of causes is related to women’s characteristics: for young women, labour competitiveness and great future expectations are the main discomfort sources; for the medium-aged, the problems are family conflicts, paid jobs or double day work, whereas frustration and the loss of faith are the main worries for women of advanced years.
Statistics reflect this fact afterwards, and women appear as the main consumers of this type of substances, as well as the most affected by psychological disorders. According to the data handled by Romo, women are with diagnosed anxiety three more times than men. However, according to the coordinator of the study, it is not due so much to physiological determinants as to cultural ways of thinking which determine behaviours according to sex. These preconceptions affect both Public Health and women.
Consultation
The study, coordinated from the University of Granada, has highlighted that the high prescription of psychotropic drugs to women is not just a matter of medical preconceptions. “Many women came to the surgery asking for any of these medicines, advised by their mothers, sisters or friends”, admits Romo. According to her, it is related to the “women’s semiology”, to the way they represent and express themselves. This way of constructing their own personality according to sex makes women more willing to than men to ask for help.
According to data of the Health National Survey, between April and September of 2003, consultations due to clinical reasons (diagnoses) were frequented by almost one million and a half more women than men. Although they are not always connected with anxiety, these data show a higher predisposition of women to going to the doctor, which also reflects on surveys to professionals carried out during the research work. At the end of the day, it turns into a double-edged sword, as some doctors tend to not to give much importance to the consultation when the visitor is a woman, according to the study.
The medical sector admitted the lack of time to deal with women who complain of unspecific discomfort, as well as their doubt about the efficiency of the treatment with psychotropic drugs. This, linked with the lack of alternative therapies like the creation of groups of women, maintains the cycle of the prescription and use of this kind of substances, which have increased in Spain 250 per cent in the last ten years. According to Julio Zarco, president of the Spanish Society of Rural and General Medicine, 30% of the medicines prescribed in Spain are psychotropic drugs.
Personal consumption
Taking into account that psychotropic drugs are now a habitual component of domestic first-aid kits, it seems easy to gain access to a substance which, once prescribed, can be used for many reasons out of the treatment prescribed. This study also reflects the exploitation many women do of psychotropic drugs to deal with situations that generate discomfort following personal consumption standards. A dangerous habit, as these substances, although they are part of the official pharmacopoeia, take the risk of causing dependence and negative side effects.
The National Drug Plan (PND) includes in its epidemiological studies on illegal drug use psychotropic drugs consumption. In one of these studies, a survey carried out in 2002 to students aged between 14 and 18 years old, 3.1% of female adolescents admitted to be habitual consumers of these substances (without prescription), against 1.7% of male teenagers. The average consumption age was fixed on 14 years old. In fact, the study coordinated from the University of Granada has detected an increase of psychotropic drugs among young women, in many cases following personal-consumption standards or advised by their mothers or friends.
Behind this trend there is a series of cultural conceptions on drugs use among men and women. Nuria Romo, an expert on this subject, admits that men usually show much higher rates of illegal substances consumption than women. What is the reason for this? According to her, due to certain social and cultural factors associated with the construction of sex, women avoid behaviours associated with risk, such as illegal drugs consumption.
“Safe” drugs
Just when substances are socially accepted (such as alcohol and tobacco), consumption statistics are on the same level, especially among the young. At certain ages, women’s consumption is already higher than men’s. Cannabis, with a risk socially perceived as similar to that of tobacco according to the survey of the PND, is the only illegal substance with similar consumption levels for both sex (it is the third most-consumed drug by the young, after alcohol and tobacco). The rest of illegal substances (cocaine, ecstasy, heroine, etc.) show higher consumption rates for men, whereas female consumption shows less “aggressive” patterns.
According to Romo’s interpretation, women perceive psychotropic drugs as “safe drugs” by women, as they come from the recognized field of Medicine. According to the anthropologist of the University of Granada, the drug industry has attempted to take advantage and has identified women as their main commercial objective; in the 50´s, in EEUU psychotropic drugs were sold as “good mothers´ pills”. At present, as this product is very widely used (especially in the most industrialized countries), organizations like the ONU have come to alert to the risk of using psychotropic drugs to solve “social” problems.
Further information:
Nuria Romo Avilés.
Dpt. Anthropology. Institute for Women´s Studies. University of Granada.
E-mail: nromo@ugr.es
