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 Specific phobia is an anxiety disorder, characterized by an extreme, unreasonable, and irrational fear associated with a specific object, situation, or concept which poses little or no actual danger. Specific phobia can lead to avoidance of the o ...

. While lack of awareness by patient or doctor of adverse drug effects can have serious consequences, and having reservations about the use of drugs with abuse potential may be healthy, having a

phobia A phobia is an anxiety disorder, defined by an irrational, unrealistic, persistent and excessive fear of an object or situation. Phobias typically result in a rapid onset of fear and are usually present for more than six months. Those affected ...

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 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 A psychoactive drug, psychopharmaceutical, mind-altering drug, consciousness-altering drug, psychoactive substance, or psychotropic substance is a chemical substance that alters psychological functioning by modulating central nervous system acti ...

. 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

References

Phobias

See also

References