Agnes Fonseca Ribeiro Filardi
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VÂnia Eloisa De AraÚjo
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Yone De Almeida Nascimento
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Djenane Ramalho De Oliveira
The use of psychotropic drugs to treat problems of everyday life is a growing phenomenon in many countries. A systematic review was conducted as a method of synthesis of results of the qualitative primary studies developed to explore the perspective of health professionals and patients regarding the use of psychotropic drugs to overcome personal problems. This systematic review was conducted in the databases Medline (PubMed), Central (Cochrane), Psycoinfo and Lilacs, including gray literature and manual search (june/2015). We identified 581 publications that were evaluated in stages and 26 met the inclusion criteria with a total of 876 participants including health professionals and patients. The doctors showed empathy by prescribing. The health professionals-prescribers and non-prescribers-were concerned about the dependence of patients on the psychotropic and the pressure to prescribe. Patients felt unable to solve their problems and seek medications as a solution. The psychotropics were considered a useful resource to overcome the social problems, existing denial of its side effects as well as the lack of openness and access to other support mechanisms.