Patterns of psychotropic medicine use and related diseases across educational groups: national cross-sectional survey

To analyse whether the use of different groups of psychotropic medicines among educational groups in a general population was congruent with the occurrence of related diseases. Data from The Danish Health and Morbidity Survey 2000 were analysed. The survey was conducted by face-to-face interviews with a representative sample of the Danish population aged 16 years and above ( n=16,690). The prevalence of four different types of psychotropic medicine use and related diseases in educational groups was analysed by indirect standardisation. Age and gender standardised prevalence ratios (SPRs) and 95% confidence intervals were calculated based on the total study population. In general, respondents in the two least-educated groups used psychotropic medicines more often and had a higher proportion reporting the related disease than could be expected according to indirect standardisation. The opposite picture appeared for respondents in the two highest educated groups (SPR