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ABSTRACT FROM: Sheehan R, Hassiotis A, Walters K, et al. Mental illness, challenging behaviour, and psychotropic drug prescribing in people with intellectual disability: UK population based cohort study. BMJ 2015;351:h4326.
What is already known on this topic
People with intellectual disability experience high rates of mental disorders and challenging behaviour, but representative data are hard to obtain for this population. Concerns have previously been raised about the difficulty this group experience in accessing quality mental health services1 and the morbidity associated with high rates of psychotropic drug prescription.2 General practitioners (GPs) are pivotal in provision of mental healthcare and representative data from this setting has the capacity to inform the epidemiology of mental disorders and the psychotropic drug burden for people with intellectual disability.
Methods of the study
Sheehan and colleagues conducted a longitudinal (1999–2003) cohort study of the prevalence of mental disorders and psychotropic drug prescription in adults with intellectual disability using data from a large, …
Footnotes
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Competing interests None declared.
Provenance and peer review Commissioned; internally peer reviewed.