drug holiday

discontinuance of a therapeutic drug for a limited period in order to control dosage and side effects and to evaluate the patient’s response with and without it. At one time commonly recommended for children taking methylphenidate, drug holidays on weekends or school vacations were thought to prevent growth suppression that was tentatively associated with this agent. Drug holidays are infrequent in modern clinical practice.

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Psychology term of the day

January 28th 2025

consistency check

a method often built into an experimental or statistical procedure to verify that data are accurate or that computations have been done correctly. For example, questionnaire items with slightly different wording but identical meaning should be answered by individuals in the same way, and respondents claiming to have a high educational degree should be of a certain age.