Psychotropic drug presentation in medical and lay press journals

Media coverage of psychotropic medications affects public views and patients' and therapists' compliance. This study is aimed to identify characteristics of and differences between medical and lay press presentations of psychotropic drugs.

Two leading German medical and three lay press journals were analyzed in seven annual sets, ranging from 1963 to 1996.

There is a clear difference in the reporting on psychotropic drugs between the different types of journals. Lay press journals primarily focus on minor tranquilizers and hypnotics which are indiscriminately presented as one group with other psychotropics, have a rather critical view on these drugs and underrepresent the needs for treatment of major mental illnesses. There were no marked trends over time in the attitude towards psychotropics. On comparing the publications before and after 1984, when benzodiazepines were put under schedule IV by WHO, differences in reports on dependency problems can only be found for the daily newspaper.

It is the responsibility of psychiatrists to enter the public discussion on how psychiatric disorders should be treated and to run public "awareness programmes".