Medication phobia, also known as pharmacophobia, is a

fear Fear is an unpleasant emotion that arises in response to perception, perceived dangers or threats. Fear causes physiological and psychological changes. It may produce behavioral reactions such as mounting an aggressive response or fleeing the ...

of the use of

pharmacological Pharmacology is the science of drugs and medications, including a substance's origin, composition, pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, therapeutic use, and toxicology. More specifically, it is the study of the interactions that occur between ...

treatments and a negative view of drugs in general. In severe, excessive and irrational cases it may be a type of specific phobia. While lack of awareness by patient or doctor of adverse drug reactions, adverse drug effects can have serious consequences, and having reservations about the use of drugs with abuse potential may be healthy, having a phobia of medications can have serious detrimental effects on patient health, for example refusal of necessary pharmacological interventions. Medication phobia can also lead to problems with medication compliance. Medication phobia can also present in parents who are concerned about giving medications to their children, fearing that the medications will do more harm than good. Medication phobia can be triggered by unpleasant adverse reactions to medications which are sometimes prescribed inappropriately or at excessive doses. Lack of awareness of the patient's Risk factor, predisposition to adverse effects (e.g. anxious patients and the elderly) and failure to attribute the adverse effects to the drug serves to compound the phobia. Starting at low doses and slowly increasing the medication dosage can avoid medication phobia secondary to adverse effects from developing. Fears of medication use is also prevalent in people who have experienced unpleasant withdrawal effects from psychotropic drugs. Sometimes patients wrongly associate symptoms of an acute disease or illness with medications used to treat the disease or illness. This form of pharmacophobia can be treated by attempting to convince the patient to take test doses of the drug or another drug in the same drug class to prove to the patient that the symptoms were not due to the drug but due to the illness the drug was taken to treat.{{Cite journal , last1=Mastrovich , first1=JD , last2=Patterson , first2=R , last3=Davison , first3=R , last4=Harris , first4=KE , title=Using test dose challenges to restore essential therapy in patients with idiopathic anaphylaxis and pharmacophobia: report of a patient with idiopathic anaphylaxis and statin phobia , journal=Allergy Asthma Proc , volume=22 , issue=5 , pages=303–9 , pmid=11715221, year=2001

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Phobias

See also

References