Preventing Prescription Drug Abuse

You probably know why some medications are only available with a prescription. It is a way to prevent the misuse and uncontrolled use of medicines that can harm your health. However, despite all the measures taken, it still happens.

Many people with diseases and conditions require painkillers to reduce the pain. In other cases, there are drugs that suppress a certain function of your nervous system to treat problems such as anxiety and insomnia.

Although these drugs are prescription only, problems can arise because of the way the doctor prescribes them and what the patient ultimately does. Misuse of prescription drugs can have dire consequences and it is a serious public health problem worldwide.

Why Does Prescription Drug Abuse Occur?

There are several reasons why people abuse prescription medication. Some medicines can lead to an addiction to the active substance.

Improper use of medications affects effectiveness and can be unsafe. Here are some of the reasons that can lead to the misuse of prescription drugs:

False beliefs: Sometimes people think that taking more than the dose indicated by the doctor will make the medicine more effective. The worst thing that can happen is that your body gets used to it and needs even higher doses for the medicine to work.

Emotional problems: If someone is not in a good psychological state, they can resort to prescription medication to get more sleep. That way they don’t have to think. It may also make them feel better and help them avoid their emotional pain as much as possible.

When emotional problems are very serious, people taking prescription drugs may try to harm themselves by abusing the drugs.

In the vast majority of cases, abuse is caused by taking the medication incorrectly, requiring people to keep increasing the dose to notice the effects. However, long-term treatment, even if the drugs are taken correctly, can also lead to the same result.

Preventing Prescription Drug Abuse

Misuse of prescription drugs can have serious consequences for your health and in some cases even global health. The latter applies, for example, to the incorrect use of antibiotics, which can lead to resistance.

Despite the measures taken to prevent abuse of certain drugs, further precautions should be taken where possible as this abuse continues to occur.

To do that, it is important to introduce and apply certain prevention methods. These measures can help to prevent certain situations such as:

• involuntary overdose.
• negative health effects.
• unwanted side effects due to uncontrolled drug use.

Determining the duration of treatment

The doctor should clearly prescribe how long the treatment he gives the patient should last. This applies, for example, to the use of benzodiazepines. This is a psychotropic drug that can be prescribed to address problems such as insomnia, anxiety, and various conditions (including obsessive-compulsive disorder).

The risk of addiction from using this substance is very high. For this reason, it is recommended that people do not take these drugs for more than 8 to 12 weeks. After this time, the doctor should look for other solutions or prescribe another drug to help prevent addiction.

Psychological support

It is very important to provide psychological counseling to patients who abuse prescription drugs. This is necessary to help them develop healthy habits. In addition, the therapist can help the patient understand when prescription medication is necessary.

In addition, they can work on various emotional aspects that can promote abuse. Also, a therapist can provide the patient with other tools to solve various problems that the patient may face in his life.

All possible types of support

Support is fundamental to stop prescription drug abuse. That is certainly the case when this abuse begins to affect the patient’s life.

If the patient is religious, he can seek support from people of his own faith. If not, there are many non-religious support groups that can be very helpful. In addition, the family, the partner and friends are a fundamental support system.

We hope this article has helped you better understand the importance of following the doctor’s instructions. In addition, hope you now know how important it is to prevent the misuse of prescription drugs. Some drugs can destroy your health and life if you become addicted to them.