Drastic changes in children’s behavior or mood may signal a need for antidepressants, experts say. SDI Productions/E+/Getty Images
By Kristen Rogers, CNN Published 12:01 AM EST, Mon February 26, 2024
(CNN) —
Many young people have reported having poor mental health during and after the Covid-19 pandemic. Their experiences are affirmed by a new study finding that the rate of prescribing antidepressants to this group also spiked during the same period.
The number of young people between the ages 12 and 25 receiving antidepressants was already growing before the pandemic. But since the Covid-19 outbreak in the United States in March 2020, the dispensing rate rose nearly 64% faster than normal, according to the study published Monday in the journal Pediatrics. (Dispensing, in the context of this study, refers to antidepressants given to patients by retail, mail-order or long-term care pharmacies; it doesn’t reflect use of the medications once purchased.)
“The differences by sex are by far the thing that stood out to me the most,” the study’s first author, Dr. Kao-Ping Chua, said of the findings. Chua is a primary care pediatrician and assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Michigan’s School of Public Health.
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