One of the risk factors influencing crash involvement is the use of medicinal drugs and in particular the so-called ‘psychoactive drugs’. Psychoactive medicinal drugs act primarily on the central nervous system and are widely used for the treatment of a variety of psychiatric and neurological problems. Among the most frequently prescribed psychoactive medicinal drugs are GABAergic hypnotics and anxiolytics, for the treatment of insomnia and anxiety disorders, respectively. Besides therapeutic effects, hypnotics and anxiolytics oten produce side-effects or residual effects. They impair cognitive and psychomotor functions and negatively affect performance in a variety of tasks, such as driving. To date, the impairing effects on driving of hypnotics and anxiolytics have been widely established in a large number of experimental studies mainly conducted with healthy young volunteers. Despite the vast amount of existing data concerning the effects of hypnotics and anxiolytics on driving, a number of questions still have remain unanswered. It is still not clear whether the results of experimental studies conducted with healthy young volunteers translate to therapeutic use in patients. Furthermore, it has not yet been clarified if residual effects of hypnotics are manifested differently between female and male users. To conclude, it has not been studied what the influence of change in formulation has on the adverse effects of an anxiolytic on driving performance. Therefore, the aim of this dissertation is to evaluate to what extent the effects of hypnotics and anxiolytics on driving performance are modulated by factors, such as age, gender, disorder or drug formulation. (Author/publisher)
Abstract