The Prevalence of Psychotropic Drugs and Relevant Factors in Iranian Youth: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Psychotropic drugs can cause many complications and side effects including cognitive, behavioral, and psychological disorders. In recent years, the Iranian youth and adolescents have growingly been using psychotropic drugs. Therefore, this study analyzes the overall prevalence of psychotropic drugs and the relevant factors among the Iranian youth through a systematic review and a meta-analysis.

Based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) checklist, this study includes a systematic review and a meta-analysis. For bias prevention, qualitative evaluation and data extraction were performed independently by two people. Different databases (PubMed, Science Direct, Springer, Wiley, ISI Web of Science, Cochran, Google Scholar, Magiran, IranMedex, SID, ISC) were investigated online, and data analysis was done in Stata software.

In total, 5 articles were selected for the meta-analysis phase. They had been published between 2008 and 2018. According to the meta-analysis results, the overall prevalence of psychotropic drugs was 4.18% [95% confidence interval (CI): 2.52-5.84] in the Iranian youth population. The overall prevalence of psychotropic drugs was 4.74% (95% CI: 1.49-7.99) and 1.06% (95% CI: 0.72-1.41) in young men and women, respectively. Three studies indicated a significant relationship between gender and the use of psychotropic drugs. In other words, the prevalence of psychotropic drugs was significantly higher in boys than in girls (P < 0.05).

The research results showed that family, parents, close friends, and unemployment were the factors affecting the prevalence of psychotropic drugs in the youth and adolescents.