[General practitioners' training in psychiatry and prescription of psychotropic drugs. 1. Education, attitudes and extent of prescribing].

The object of this investigation was to describe prescription of psychotropic drugs by general practitioners in relation to their training and attitudes to employment of psychotropic drugs in the treatment of psychosocial conflicts. The investigation was carried out as a multicentre questionnaire investigation in the County of Aarhus in which 192 (89%) out of 215 general practitioners who were invited participated. In brief and prolonged psychosocial conflicts, 58 (31%) and 149 (81%), respectively, considered that prescription of psychotropic drugs constituted poor treatment. More than half of the general practitioners found that the amounts of psychotropic drugs prescribed by themselves and other general practitioners were excessive and that they were, themselves, responsible for this. The majority of the general practitioners found that their attitudes were of great significance for their prescriptions of psychotropic drugs and 71 out of 191 practitioners (37%) found that the pressure of work usually or frequently influenced this. A total of 107 (56%) had had appointments in psychiatric departments (average duration six months) prior to establishment as general practitioners. A total of 117 (61%) had received some form of postgraduate psychiatric training after establishment as general practitioners while 29 (20%) had not received any form of psychiatric training or postgraduate psychiatric education. No connection could be demonstrated between psychiatric training and the extent of prescription of psychotropic drugs.