Holding an enquiry into the topic `medicines and driver fitness' sponsored by the Federal Highway Research Institute more than 1000 published experimental studies on performance following drug intake were gathered. By means of a meta-analytic approach important information of the studies were PC-extracted (among other things: number, age and sex of subjects, manner of treatment, time between drug intake and testing, tasks presented and the experimental findings) and analysed with the help of inferential statistics. Three examples will prove the benefit of this methodological approach: applied to diazepam detailed statements on kind, intensity and duration of impairment are given. A comparison between the alterations of comparison between the alterations of some benzodiazepines assist the physicians in prescribing an optimum substance to drivers. The combination of blood concentration curves and time dependent curve of impairment can be a valuable tool to experts judging the danger of a medicine in terms of substance concentration. (A)
Abstract