ArticlePediatrics2024
Antidepressant Dispensing to US Adolescents and Young Adults: 2016-2022.
Article in Pediatrics, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 29 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
29 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Change of antidepressant utilization in children, adolescents and young adults in Europe before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: a systematic review.European child & adolescent psychiatry · 2026Pooled it
- A Re-Appraisal of Three Network Meta-Analyses to Explain the Discrepancy in Findings for the Efficacy of Fluoxetine for the Treatment of Depression in Children and Adolescents.Cochrane evidence synthesis and methods · 2026Article
- Large-scale analysis demonstrates the influence of CYP2C19 genotype on specific SSRI side effects.The pharmacogenomics journal · 2026Article
- Mood Altering Waters: Multidimensional Profiling and Chiral Characterization of Antidepressants in Effluent-Impacted Waterways.Environmental science & technology · 2026Article
- A Comprehensive Simulation Study to Evaluate the Effect Size and Study Length Relationship in Single-Group Interrupted Time Series Analysis.Evaluation & the health professions · 2026Article
- Classifying and visualizing medication use in the ABCD study.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- The association of depressive symptoms in children with indoor and outdoor short-term exposure to particulate matter.BMC public health · 2026Article
- Article
- Review
- SSRI/SNRI and long COVID in children and adolescents with neuropsychiatric conditions: a cohort study from the RECOVER Initiative.Nature. Mental health · 2026Article
- Psychotropic dispensing in Greek adolescents and young adults: national trends and regional variation.Frontiers in drug safety and regulation · 2026Article
- Perinatal citalopram exposure alters the gut composition and microbial metabolic profiles of Sprague-Dawley rat dams and female offspring but not male offspring.Biology of sex differences · 2025Article
- Functional Limitations and Illness-Related Absenteeism among School-Aged Children with and without Long COVID, United States, 2022-2023.Emerging infectious diseases · 2025Article
- Trends in Medication Use Among Young Adults and the Covid-19 Pandemic Effect.Pharmacoepidemiology and drug safety · 2025Article
- Functional Limitations and Illness-Related Absenteeism among School-Aged Children with and without Long COVID, United States, 2022-2023.Emerging infectious diseases · 2025Article
- Classifying and visualizing medication use in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2025Article
- Increasing Prevalence of Long-Term Antidepressant Use in Australia: A Retrospective Observational Study.Pharmacoepidemiology and drug safety · 2025Observational
- Pharmacogenetic Testing of Children and Adolescents with Mental Health Conditions: Real-World Experiences.Pharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Identifying Predictors of Serious Adverse Events in Antidepressant Treatment from a Decade-Long Nationwide Pharmacovigilance Study: Impact of Dementia and Parkinson's Disease Treatment.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2025Article
- Exploring non-medical prescribing for patients with mental illness: a scoping review.BMC psychiatry · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
- Commented on by
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundMental health worsened in adolescents and young adults after the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak in March 2020, but whether antidepressant dispensing to this population changed is unknown.
methodsWe identified antidepressant prescriptions dispensed to US individuals aged 12 to 25 years from 2016 to 2022 using the IQVIA Longitudinal Prescription Database, an all-payer national database. The outcome was the monthly antidepressant dispensing rate, defined as the monthly number of individuals with ≥1 dispensed antidepressant prescription per 100 000 people. We fitted linear segmented regression models assessing for level or slope changes during March 2020 and conducted subgroup analyses by sex and age group.
resultsBetween January 2016 and December 2022, the monthly antidepressant dispensing rate increased 66.3%, from 2575.9 to 4284.8. Before March 2020, this rate increased by 17.0 per month (95% confidence interval: 15.2 to 18.8). The COVID-19 outbreak was not associated with a level change but was associated with a slope increase of 10.8 per month (95% confidence interval: 4.9 to 16.7). The monthly antidepressant dispensing rate increased 63.5% faster from March 2020 onwards compared with beforehand. In subgroup analyses, this rate increased 129.6% and 56.5% faster from March 2020 onwards compared with beforehand among females aged 12 to 17 years and 18 to 25 years, respectively. In contrast, the outbreak was associated with a level decrease among males aged 12 to 17 years and was not associated with a level or slope change among males aged 18 to 25 years.
conclusionsAntidepressant dispensing to adolescents and young adults was rising before the COVID-19 outbreak and rose 63.5% faster afterward. This change was driven by increased antidepressant dispensing to females and occurred despite decreased dispensing to male adolescents.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.