Three Groups More Likely to Self-Medicate

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NEW ORLEANS -- Men, singles, and those aged 30 years and younger are more likely than other groups in the general population to use psychoactive substances to cope with psychiatric symptoms, a large population-based study conducted in France suggests.

Men in the study were particularly likely to use such substances for this purpose. Among the 20,077 individuals surveyed, 17% of men and 7% of women reported using substances to self-medicate, Dr. Gaelle Encreanz of the public research organization Inserm in Bordeaux, France, and colleagues reported in a poster at the American Psychiatric Association's Institute on Psychiatric Services.

Similarly, of the 1,253 men and …