ArticleSocial psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology2023
The stratified medicalisation of mental health symptoms: educational inequalities in the use of psychotropic medication in Belgium.
Article in Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- More or less equal? Trends in horizontal equity in mental health care utilization in Stockholm county, Sweden (2006-2022). Repeated survey-registry linked studies.International journal for equity in health · 2025Article
- Trends in the use of benzodiazepine receptor agonists among working-age adults in Belgium from 2004 to 2018.Frontiers in public health · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeSeveral studies have shown socioeconomic inequalities in psychotropic medication use, but most of these studies are inspired by Andersen's behavioural model of health care use, which strongly focusses on individuals' needs. Andersen's model pays little attention to health care use that is not based on need and insubstantially recognises the context dependentness of individuals. Medicalisation, however, is a context-dependent interactive process that not only interacts with need determinants, but also with non-need determinants that affect health care use. Therefore, this study will examine if psychotropic medication use is stratified, and whether this is not simply the result of differences in need for care, but also influenced by factors not based on need, initiating the stratified medicalisation of mental health symptoms.
methodsData from the Belgian Health Interview Survey (BHIS) are used. This study covers information from five successive waves: 2001, 2004, 2013, 2018. The weighted data represent a sample of the adult Belgian population. The research aims are analysed using stepwise Poisson regression models, where the models are also plotted to detect evolutions over time, using marginal means postestimation.
resultsThe results reveal that educational inequalities in psychotropic medication use are significant and persistently visible over time. Even after entering need for care, educational inequalities remain significant.
conclusionThis study shows that psychotropic medication use is stratified and that this is not simply the result of differences in need for care, but also influenced by factors linked to the stratified medicalisation of mental health symptoms.
Indexed as
Identifiers
35426506What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.