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Sammanfattning

What is defined as an illness is socially determined. During the last decades there has been a number of new psychiatric diagnoses, for example ADHD. Old diagnoses have also been extended to new groups. Nearly ten per cent of the adult Swedish population is using antidepressants. Important actors in the process of medicalization are the pharmaceutical industry, professional groups and patient’s organizations. The medicalization process has affected the treatment of drug abuse and dependency disorders. The use of pharmaceutical drugs and other types of medical treatment has increased and social care and intervention has decreased. This process may have contributed to an increase in drug-related mortality, mainly attributed to prescribed opioids.

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