[Home chronic illness and consumption of psychopharmaceuticals]

To assess the consumption of psychiatric drugs by chronic homebound patients.

Descriptive, longitudinal study.

Raval Nord Health District, Barcelona.

All 243 chronically ill homebound patients registered on the home care programme in May 1996. After three years 16% had gone into a home, 9% had moved residence, 38% had died, and 37% remained active.

Of the 90 patients still active, 40% took some psychiatric drug in May 1999. 8% of the patients who said they had taken psychiatric drugs did so by self-medication. The most commonly consumed pharmacological group of the psychiatric drugs were benzodiazepines at 64%. Women took more psychiatric drugs (45%), as did persons living alone or who had been bereaved (50%). The proportion of patients taking psychiatric drugs was greater when there was worse autonomy according to the Katz index (67%), a cognitive deficit on the Short Portable Mental Status Questionnaire (SPMSQ) of Pfeiffer (62%), and in the presence of comorbidity (56%) (p < 0.01).

There is high consumption of psychiatric drugs by chronic homebound patients, especially when there is physical-cognitive deterioration and presence of comorbidity.