ArticleThe lancet. Psychiatry2024
Psychotropic drug prescribing before and during the COVID-19 pandemic among people with depressive and anxiety disorders: a multinational network study.
Article in The lancet. Psychiatry, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Utilization of mental health services during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic - a systematic review and meta-analysis.European psychiatry : the journal of the Association of European Psychiatrists · 2026Pooled it
- Post-Acute Sequelae of COVID-19 Across 15 Major Health Domains and 67 Diseases in Individuals With Depressive Disorder: A Korean Nationwide Cohort Study.Journal of Korean medical science · 2026Article
- Association between the combination of GABAergic agents and SSRIs at the first clinical visit and depressive symptom trajectories: A study using group-based trajectory modeling and Apriori algorithm.PLOS mental health · 2026Article
- Psychotropic medication consumption before and after onset of COVID-19 pandemic in 91 countries and regions: a time-series analysis.The Lancet regional health. Western Pacific · 2025Article
- National Prescribing Trends and Cost Analysis of Antidepressants, Anxiolytics, and Hypnotics in England, 2010-2023.Human psychopharmacology · 2025Article
- Association between the COVID-19 pandemic and cardiopulmonary function in acute coronary syndrome patients without SARS-CoV-2 infection.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Consumption of Anxiolytics, Antipsychotics, and Antidepressants in South Italian Region.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Psychiatric and neuropsychiatric sequelae of COVID-19 within 2 years: a multinational cohort study.BMC medicine · 2025Article
- Depressive and anxiety disorders in Polish children across the COVID-19 pandemic: a nationwide registry-based time-trend analysis.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2025Article
- Five years after the pandemic: rethinking the pharmacological management of mental disorders.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2025Article
- The Use of Psychotropic Medications Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic and Its Associated Factors.Journal of clinical medicine · 2024Article
- COVID-19 and mental health consequences: moving forward.The lancet. Psychiatry · 2024Article
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19 authors.
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Abstract
backgroundPeople with mental health conditions were potentially more vulnerable than others to the neuropsychiatric effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the global efforts taken to contain it. The aim of this multinational study was to examine the changes in psychotropic drug prescribing during the pandemic among people with depressive and anxiety disorders.
methodsThis study included electronic medical records and claims data from nine databases in six countries (France, Germany, Italy, the UK, South Korea, and the USA) of patients with a diagnosis of depressive or anxiety disorders between 2016 and 2021. The outcomes were monthly prevalence rates of antidepressant, antipsychotic, and anxiolytic drug prescribing. The associations between the pandemic and psychotropic drug prescribing were examined with interrupted time series analyses for the total sample and stratified by sex and age group. People with lived experience were not involved in the research and writing process.
findingsBetween Jan 1, 2016 and Dec 31, 2020, an average of 16 567 914 patients with depressive disorders (10 820 956 females [65·31%] and 5 746 958 males [34·69%]) and 15 988 451 patients with anxiety disorders (10 688 788 females [66·85%] and 5 299 663 males [33·15%]) were identified annually. Most patients with depressive disorders and anxiety disorders were aged 45-64 years. Ethnicity data were not available. Two distinct trends in prescribing rates were identified. The first pattern shows an initial surge at the start of the pandemic (eg, antipsychotics among patients with depressive disorders in MDCD_US (rate ratio [RR] 1·077, 95% CI 1·055-1·100), followed by a gradual decline towards the counterfactual level (RR 0·990, 95% CI 0·988-0·992). The second pattern, observed in four databases for anxiolytics among patients with depressive disorders and two for antipsychotics among patients with anxiety disorders, shows an immediate increase (eg, antipsychotics among patients with anxiety disorders in IQVIA_UK: RR 1·467, 95% CI 1·282-1·675) without a subsequent change in slope (RR 0·985, 95% CI 0·969-1·003). In MDCD_US and IQVIA_US, the anxiolytic prescribing rate continued to increase among patients younger than 25 years for both disorders.
interpretationThe study reveals persistently elevated rates of psychotropic drug prescriptions beyond the initial phase of the pandemic. These findings underscore the importance of enhanced mental health support and emphasise the need for regular review of psychotropic drug use among this patient group in the post-pandemic era.
fundingUniversity Grants Committee, Research Grants Council, The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.
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