ArticlePloS one2013
Initiation of psychotropic medication after partner bereavement: a matched cohort study.
Article in PloS one, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed.
- Ayahuasca-assisted meaning reconstruction therapy as an early resource for bereavement: a non-randomized clinical trial.Scientific reports · 2025Trial
- Psychotropic medication trajectories around parental bereavement and their association with suicide mortality among adolescents and young adults, a Swedish nationwide cohort study.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2026Article
- Grief trajectories and long-term health effects in bereaved relatives: a prospective, population-based cohort study with ten-year follow-up.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
- The psychological symptom burden in partners of pancreatic cancer patients: a population-based cohort study.Supportive care in cancer : official journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer · 2021Article
- New antidepressant utilization pre- and post-bereavement: a population-based study of partners and adult children.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2020Article
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundRecent changes to diagnostic criteria for depression in DSM-5 remove the bereavement exclusion, allowing earlier diagnosis following bereavement. Evaluation of the potential effect of this change requires an understanding of existing psychotropic medication prescribing by non-specialists after bereavement.
aimsTo describe initiation of psychotropic medication in the first year after partner bereavement.
methodsIn a UK primary care database, we identified 21,122 individuals aged 60 and over with partner bereavement and no psychotropic drug use in the previous year. Prescribing (anxiolytic/hypnotic, antidepressant, antipsychotic) after bereavement was compared to age, sex and practice matched controls.
resultsThe risks of receiving a new psychotropic prescription within two and twelve months of bereavement were 9.5% (95% CI 9.1 to 9.9%) and 17.9% (17.3 to 18.4%) respectively; an excess risk of initiation in the first year of 12.4% compared to non-bereaved controls. Anxiolytic/hypnotic and antidepressant initiation rates were highest in the first two months. In this period, the hazard ratio for initiation of anxiolytics/hypnotics was 16.7 (95% CI 14.7 to 18.9) and for antidepressants was 5.6 (4.7 to 6.7) compared to non-bereaved controls. 13.3% of those started on anxiolytics/hypnotics within two months continued to receive this drug class at one year. The marked variation in background family practice prescribing of anxiolytics/hypnotics was the strongest determinant of their initiation in the first two months after bereavement.
conclusionAlmost one in five older people received a new psychotropic drug prescription in the year after bereavement. The early increase and trend in antidepressant use after bereavement suggests some clinicians did not adhere to the bereavement exclusion, with implications for its recent removal in DSM-5. Family practice variation in use of anxiolytics/hypnotics suggests uncertainty over their role in bereavement with the potential for inappropriate long term use.
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