ArticleBMC psychiatry2024
Associations between over-the-counter analgesics usage and symptoms of anxiety and depression in adolescents: a network analysis.
Article in BMC psychiatry, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Self-medication and pain in the European Union: Gender differences and associated factors.Preventive medicine reports · 2026Article
- Pharmacovigilance Insights into Ibuprofen's Neuropsychiatric Safety: A Retrospective Analysis of EudraVigilance Reports.Pharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Article
- Self-Medication in Individuals With Depression and Symptoms of Depression in the European Union: Prevalence and Associated Factors.Depression and anxiety · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundThe use of over-the-counter analgesics (OTCA) is common among adolescents and has been linked with increased symptoms of anxiety and depression. However, little is known about which specific symptoms are most strongly connected to OTCA usage. The current study assessed which anxiety and depression symptoms were most closely associated with OTCA usage in a large sample of adolescents and examined whether this differed across genders.
methodThe present study was based on data from 626,581 participants from the Ungdata survey in Norway. Associations between OTCA and anxiety and depression symptoms were examined using network analysis. Non-regularized partial-correlation networks were constructed to estimate the conditional dependent relations between the use of OTCA and symptoms while controlling for pain. Gender-specific networks were created for comparison.
resultsOTCA usage was associated with most symptoms, even after controlling for pain, with the strongest associations with "sleep problems", "stiff or tense", "everything is a struggle" and "suddenly scared". There were some gender differences, showing that "sleep problems" and "hopeless" were more strongly related to OTCA usage in females, whereas "stiff or tense" was more strongly related to OTCA usage in males.
conclusionOverall, the somatic symptoms of anxiety and depression displayed the strongest associations with OTCA usage. When examining the gender-specific networks, both showed similar trends, although males exhibited slightly stronger associations between OTCA usage and somatic symptoms.
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