Effects of drug administration in pregnancy on children's school behaviour.

Files with prescription data were used to assess possible behavioural changes in children, whose mothers used benzodiazepines or neuroleptic drugs during the second half of their pregnancy. Prescriptions, bearing the identification number of women resident in one district of Prague, filed in pharmacies during 1974 and the first three months of 1975 represent the first part of the data. During 1984, children born in the appropriate earlier period were searched and linked with the earlier prescription data. A group of 68 children with possible exposure to neuroleptics and a group of 15 children possibly exposed to diazepam during the second half of their intrauterine development were found. Two groups of 55 and 7 children, respectively, born of mothers without exposure to these drugs, were chosen as controls. The teachers of classes attended by these children were addressed by a letter and asked to evaluate their behaviour at school. This was done by means of a form containing analogue scales evaluating different features of behaviour. Each child was compared with its control. The statistical evaluation with Student's t-test, regression analysis and analysis of variance did not reveal any significant difference between both groups and their controls.

Cardiovascular drugs in Czechoslovakia--registration and consumption data.

Data on registration and consumption of cardiovascular drugs in Czechoslovakia were sorted from the computerized Drug Information System (DIS) for a detailed analysis. Cardiovascular drugs (including antiarrhythmics, cardiac glycosides, diuretics, antihypertensive agents and vasodilators) represent at present 10% of all registered drugs in Czechoslovakia with an ever increasing trend over the last ten years. For economical analysis of consumption of cardiovascular drugs, three methodological approaches (expenditure figures, material units--number of packages and DDD (Defined Daily Dosis), as a technical unit of measurement) were chosen. In the period of 7 years (1980-1986) all three methodologies confirmed the increasing trend of cardiovascular drugs consumption in Czechoslovakia. However, an international comparison of consumption data between Czechoslovakia and Sweden revealed lower levels in Czechoslovakia in this respect.

[What the data on utilization of antiepileptic agents reveals]. / Co nám mohou prozradit údaje o spotrebe antiepileptik.

Using the method of expressing the consumption of anti-epileptic drugs by the number of defined daily doses per 1000 population per day (DDD/1000/d), data covering the three-year period from September 1984 to August 1987 in districts of the Czech Socialist Republic are presented in tables. The mean and liminal values are given for anti-epileptics as a whole and mean values of the phenytoin consumption in region, incl. liminal values of the percentage ratio of Sanepil (phenytoin 80 mg, phenobarbital 18.5 mg) in districts of different regions of the CSR. On the enclosed map for the first annual period districts where this ratio was 25%, 50%, 75% or more (only in the South Moravian region) are hatched. In the subsequent tables are districts with greater changes of this indicator than +5% and -10% in the course of the three years of the investigation. The greatest drop was recorded in the district where there was a new leading neurologist who came from the area of another medical school to the South Moravian region. The authors discuss the influence of the medical school and present results of an enquiry by means of questionnaires among neurologists regarding the place of medical studies of neurologists in the region and views on the advantage of Sanepil, as compared with pure phenytoin.