Introduction:

the accelerated rhythm of life, chronic stress, onset of anxiety, depression and distress, often lead to self-medication with psychotropic drugs, with the risk of getting into the habit, without being effective in solving the situation, these can be of great help if prescribed correctly and accompanied by other actions, but in many cases is being excessive and causes pathological effects when the problems are psychological and people are exposed to prolonged consumption.

Objective:

to determine the self-medication with psychoactive drugs in the population of a group of clinics from Pinar del Río municipality, and the effects provoked by prolonged use.

Methods:

descriptive, cross-sectional, epidemiological research carried out by means of visiting 10,636 families from 37 clinics in three health areas of the city of Pinar del Río, between September 2017 and June 2018, with a population of 29,877 people, to determine self-medication with psychotropic drugs in people over 20 years old, and to diagnose the effects recognized due to their prolonged use, through a survey prepared for this purpose.

Results:

82,61 % of the target population to be surveyed were over 20 years old and among these 8,9 % practiced self-medication. They recognized getting into the habit (38,5 %) and dependency 11 %.

Conclusions:

self-medication with psycho-pharmaceuticals is frequent in the studied population; it implies getting into the habit and suffer from risks of dependence, which lead to social situations and impose regulations in order to control health policy and appealing to proven and integrative experiences.

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