Medicinal self-poisoning and prescription frequency.

Deliberate non-fatal self-poisoning due to medicinal agents more than doubled in England and Wales during the period 1968-78. Interregional analysis showed a significant positive correlation between the rate at which psychotropic drugs were prescribed by general practitioners (GPs) and the medicinal self-poisoning rate. Regression analysis indicated that a reduction of 1000 psychotropic prescriptions would be associated with 3.8 fewer self-poisoning admissions due to medicinal agents. Causal and non-causal links between the psychotropic prescription rate and the medicinal self-poisoning rate were both considered, but the balance of the evidence seems to favour the causal interpretation. Overall, it is suggested that the benefits of such reduced prescribing outweight the costs. A significant relationship was not found between unemployment and medicinal self-poisoning.