ArticlePloS one2018
Hormonal contraception increases the risk of psychotropic drug use in adolescent girls but not in adults: A pharmacoepidemiological study on 800 000 Swedish women.
Article in PloS one, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 40 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
40 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 95 citations in OpenAlex.
- Influence of mental health conditions and symptoms on contraceptive use among adolescent girls and young women: a scoping review.Frontiers in reproductive health · 2025Pooled it
- Effects of three contraceptive methods on depression and sexual function: An ancillary study of the ECHO randomized trial.International journal of gynaecology and obstetrics: the official organ of the International Federation of Gynaecology and Obstetrics · 2021Trial
- Identifying psychiatric comorbidities that occur following the introduction of hormonal contraception: a scoping review.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Review
- Lasting effects of oral contraceptives on fear responses to a safe context.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Article
- The violence of reproductive injustice: Reflections on birth control and its medical epistemics.International journal for equity in health · 2025Article
- Between contraception and hormones: a qualitative analysis of the lived experiences of former contraceptive pill users.Sexual and reproductive health matters · 2025Article
- Adolescent Mental Health, Contraceptive Knowledge, and Teen Pregnancy Risk: A Systematic Review.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Use of systemic hormonal contraception and risk of depression: a registry-based study from Finland.European journal of epidemiology · 2025Article
- Postpartum Hormonal Contraceptive Use and Risk of Depression.JAMA network open · 2025Article
- 28 days later: A prospective daily study on psychological well-being across the menstrual cycle and the effects of hormones and oral contraceptives.Psychological medicine · 2025Article
- REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH IN TRANS AND GENDER DIVERSE PATIENTS: Contraception considerations in transmasculine and gender diverse adolescents and young adults.Reproduction (Cambridge, England) · 2025Review
- Mental Health Across the Menstrual Cycle in Polycystic Ovary Syndrome: Insights and Implications.Current psychiatry reports · 2024Review
- Beyond Birth Control: The Neuroscience of Hormonal Contraceptives.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2024Review
- Endocrinological Treatment Targets for Depressive Disorder.Advances in experimental medicine and biology · 2024Review
- Association of Hormonal Contraceptives with Depression among Women in Reproductive Age Groups: A Cross-Sectional Analytic Study.Obstetrics and gynecology international · 2024Article
- Current oral contraceptive use affects explicit and implicit measures of depression in women.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- Mental Health Symptoms in Oral Contraceptive Users During Short-Term Hormone Withdrawal.JAMA network open · 2023Article
- Population-based cohort study of oral contraceptive use and risk of depression.Epidemiology and psychiatric sciences · 2023Article
- Women's health, hormonal balance, and personal autonomy.Frontiers in medicine · 2023Review
- Assessing the role of adolescent hormonal contraceptive use on risk for depression: a 3-year longitudinal study protocol.BMC women's health · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The burden of depression and anxiety disorders is greater in women, and female sex hormones have been shown to affect mood. Psychological side effects of hormonal contraception (HC) are also a common complaint in the clinic, but few previous studies have investigated this subject. We therefore wanted to investigate whether use of HC was associated with adverse psychological health outcomes, and whether this association was modified by age. All women aged 12-30 years on 31 December 2010, residing in Sweden for at least four years and with no previous psychiatric morbidity (n = 815 662), were included. We followed the women from their first HC use (or 31 December 2010, if they were non-users) at baseline, until a prescription fill of psychotropic drugs or the end of the one-year follow-up. We performed age-stratified logistic regression models and estimated odds ratios (OR) to measure the association between different HC methods and psychotropic drug use, as well as the area under the receiver operating curve to estimate discriminatory accuracy of HC in relation to psychotropic drugs. Overall, we found an association between HC and psychotropic drugs (adjusted OR 1.34, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.30-1.37). In the age-stratified analysis, the strongest association was found in adolescent girls (adjusted OR 3.46, 95% CI 3.04-4.94 for age 12 to 14 years), while it was non-existent for adult women. We conclude that hormonal contraception is associated with psychotropic drug use among adolescent girls, suggesting an adverse effect of HC on psychological health in this population.
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Registered trials
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