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[Risk of drug dependence for anesthesiologists]
1Service d'anesthésie-réanimation, hôpital Tenon, 4, rue de la Chine, 75970 Paris, France.
Objective:
No epidemiologic study or any other type of evaluation has been performed so far concerning substance abuse among french anaesthetists. We therefore reviewed the English literature to analyse relevant data on this topic.
Data Sources:
A search for edited manuscripts dedicated to drug addiction in anaesthetists was conducted on Medline and Databases (Toxibase and ASA websites).
Study Selection:
Forty-two references related to this problem were selected noteworthy based on epidemiologic data provided.
Synthesis:
1% to 2% of anaesthetists are considered drug addicts in epidemiological studies. Whether the prévalence of drug addiction is higher in anaesthetists compared to other medical specialists remains controversial. Mortality in addict anaesthetists is more than 15% over 5 years. Rehabilitation programs succeed in 60% to 80% of the cases but residents in anaesthesia need to be redirected to another medical specialty.