Modeling Spanish anxiolytic consumption: Economic, demographic and behavioral influences

Anxiolytics (AX) are the psychotropic drugs prescribed for the treatment of anxiety and insomnia for 2–4 weeks, for longer periods of consumption (>1 month) may lead to the development of tolerance or addiction. In fact, its prescription was 16% of the total pharmaceutical expenditure in Spain in 2007. This paper deals with the development of a mathematical model describing the dynamic of the addiction to AX for the case study of the Spanish region of Castellón. The reasons believed to cause the development of addicts to AX are the economic situation, the marriage termination and the social contact. The simulations performed to forecast the addicts rate for the period 2010–2014 showed an increase from 6% in 2010 to 14% in 2014 with a fluctuation of about 2% between the possible economic scenarios. Finally, the analysis of sensitivity of the rate of addicts to the fluctuation of the social contact parameters was performed, letting us estimate its impact on the pharmaceutical expenditure.