Centre for Psychiatry Research, Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet & Stockholm Health Care Services, Region Stockholm, Sweden.
Outpatient and Inpatient Care Service, Central Health Directorate, Region Friuli Venezia Giulia, Trieste, Italy.
Transl Psychiatry. 2024 Apr 4;14(1):175. doi: 10.1038/s41398-024-02894-z.
Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been concerns over the mental health impact of COVID-19. This is a review of the utilization of antidepressants, anxiolytics, and hypnotics since the COVID-19 pandemic was declared on March the 11th 2020. A number of reports so far have been based on large prescription databases for administrative use at the national or regional level, but mainly in high-income countries. We found studies reporting increased prescription rates of antidepressants, anxiolytics, and hypnotics during March 2020, which has been interpreted as hoarding of such medications. In the following months, most studies of antidepressant prescription rates did not display a clear pattern of change compared with prepandemic trends. In later phases of the pandemic small increases in utilization of antidepressants, with higher than predicted prescription rates, have been the most consistent finding, especially in youth. In most high-income countries, there were increasing trends in utilization of antidepressants also before 2020, which needs to be considered when estimating utilization during the pandemic, whereas for anxiolytics and hypnotics, the prepandemic patterns of prescriptions were more varying. Overall, after March 2020 we could not find any distinct changes in the utilization of anxiolytics and hypnotics during the COVID-19 pandemic. Most studies did not contain information about the prevalence of indicated psychiatric disorders in the studied populations. More studies are needed about the long-term effects of COVID-19, particularly regarding utilization of antidepressants. Research relating antidepressant utilization with the prevalence of major depression and anxiety disorders would promote a better understanding of how well antidepressant prescription rates reflect the needs of the population.
自 COVID-19 大流行以来，人们一直担心 COVID-19 对心理健康的影响。这是对自 2020 年 3 月 11 日宣布 COVID-19 大流行以来抗抑郁药、抗焦虑药和催眠药使用情况的综述。到目前为止，许多报告都是基于国家或地区一级行政使用的大量处方数据库，但主要是在高收入国家。我们发现报告显示 2020 年 3 月抗抑郁药、抗焦虑药和催眠药的处方率增加，这被解释为此类药物的囤积。在接下来的几个月里，与大流行前的趋势相比，大多数抗抑郁药处方率的研究并没有显示出明显的变化模式。在大流行的后期阶段，抗抑郁药的使用量略有增加，处方率高于预期，这是最一致的发现，尤其是在年轻人中。在大多数高收入国家，2020 年之前也有抗抑郁药使用量增加的趋势，在估计大流行期间的使用量时需要考虑到这一点，而对于抗焦虑药和催眠药，大流行前的处方模式则更为多样。总体而言，2020 年 3 月之后，我们在 COVID-19 大流行期间没有发现抗焦虑药和催眠药使用情况有任何明显变化。大多数研究没有包含研究人群中规定精神障碍患病率的信息。需要更多关于 COVID-19 长期影响的研究，特别是关于抗抑郁药的使用。研究抗抑郁药的使用与重度抑郁症和焦虑症的患病率之间的关系，将有助于更好地了解抗抑郁药处方率反映人群需求的程度。
