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Patterns of psychiatric medication use among nationally representative long‐term cancer survivors and controls
Author(s) -
Braun Ilana M.,
Rao Sowmya R.,
Meyer Fremonta L.,
Fedele Giuseppe
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
cancer
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.052
H-Index - 304
eISSN - 1097-0142
pISSN - 0008-543X
DOI - 10.1002/cncr.29014
Subject(s) - medicine , logistic regression , psychiatric medication , psychiatry , odds ratio , medical prescription , psychiatric diagnosis , confidence interval , population , psychotropic medication , medical diagnosis , psychiatric assessment , mental health , schizophrenia (object oriented programming) , environmental health , pathology , pharmacology
BACKGROUND Investigations of long‐term cancer survivors (LTCS) indicate that this population is not appreciably different from cancer‐naive peers with respect to several neuropsychiatric domains. The current study sought to determine whether differences in psychiatric medication use might help to explain the negative findings. METHODS In a nationally representative sample, 5692 subjects were queried for cancer history, psychiatric diagnoses, and psychotropic medication use. The LTCS were defined as those individuals who were ≥5 years from diagnosis and whose cancer was in remission or cured. Odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals were obtained from multivariable logistic regression models evaluating the relationship between cancer status and use of psychiatric medications. The interaction between case/control status and psychiatric diagnoses was also tested in a logistic regression model to predict psychotropic medication use. RESULTS A total of 225 participants met the criteria for LTCS and 3953 met the criteria for cancer‐naive controls (CNC). The LTCS were no more likely than CNC to carry a psychiatric diagnosis. Despite the LTCS reporting somewhat greater psychotropic medication use compared with the CNC (28.8% vs 22.3%), unadjusted and adjusted differences did not reach statistical significance, possibly due to sample size. The interaction between case/control status and carrying a psychiatric diagnosis was not found to be significantly associated with receiving a psychiatric medication. CONCLUSIONS LTCS and CNC demonstrated comparable rates of psychiatric prescription medication use. The relationship between taking a psychiatric medication and carrying a psychiatric diagnosis was not found to be significantly different between the case and control groups. These findings contribute to an emerging hypothesis that in general LTCS are not a particularly psychiatrically vulnerable group. Cancer 2015;121:132–138 . © 2014 American Cancer Society .