Chronic Psychotropic Drug Use Among Frail Elderly Women Receiving Home Care Services

Abstract

Over the years, psychotropic drugs have been prescribed for symptoms of anxiety and/or insomnia. Elderly women are especially at risk of chronic use and ensuing side-effects. We examined psychosocial processes associated with long-term psychotropic drug use. We conducted in-depth interviews with 21 frail elderly women in a home care program and 14 of their primary caregivers. Results yielded a descriptive model of chronic use that takes into account antecedents of use, initial and subsequent prescription processes, individual contextual circumstances, the effect of the social context, and the women's cognitive strategies employed to make prolonged use coherent with their self-image.

Keywords:

• medicalization
• women's health
• caregivers
• frail elderly women
• home care

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We would like to thank the Conseil Québécois pour la recherche sociale (Quebec Council for Social Research) for grant # SR-3455.

Notes

1. We retained one participant who had cancer but was diagnosed in 1995 and had been in remission for a year and a half. Therefore, the cancer was controlled at the time of testing, thanks to successful chemotherapy. This woman was in very high spirits. Two women were currently experiencing stressful events (mourning of a spouse and risk of placement). However, in both cases, consumption of psychotropic drugs increased several years before these occurrences (9 and 15–30 years respectively). Otherwise, these two respondents met all our criteria.