14 DAY TRIAL // According to a new statistical report released recently, the use of antidepressants in the United States has increased steadily between 1996 and 2005, with no signs of deceleration. Most likely, the experts behind the new study say, it will continue to increase among those older than six years of age in the future as well, while at the same time remaining relatively low among racial and ethnic minorities. Details of the investigation appear in the August issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, a journal published by the JAMA/Archives.
“Several factors may have contributed to this trend, including a broadening in concepts of need for mental health treatment, campaigns to promote mental health care and growing public acceptance of mental health treatments. In parallel with growth in mental health service usage, psychotropic medications have become increasingly prominent in treatment,” the authors write in the background section of their new article. The work was conducted by experts at the Columbia University Medical Center, the New York State Psychiatric Institute, and the University of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia.
Scientists Mark Olfson, MD, MPH and Steven C. Marcus, PhD analyzed data collected from the Medical Expenditure Panel Surveys, collected for 1996 and 2005, and sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. In the 1996 study, more than 18,993 individuals aged six and older were analyzed, while, for the second research, some 28,445 people had their records looked at. For each of the households represented in the report, a single adult responded to researchers' questions, which were related to medical visits, prescriptions, existing medical conditions and other such things.
According to the results of the investigation, the rate of antidepressant use increased considerably, from 5.84 percent, or 13.3 million individuals, in 1996, to 10.12 percent, or 27 million individuals a decade later. “Significant increases in antidepressant use were evident across all sociodemographic groups examined, except African Americans, who had comparatively low rates of use in both years (1996, 3.61 percent; 2005, 4.51 percent). Although antidepressant treatment increased for Hispanics, it remained comparatively low (1996, 3.72 percent; 2005, 5.21 percent),” the experts write in the journal.
Some of the factors that may have contributed to this significant rise in antidepressant use may have included a larger variety of drugs available for purchase – after they were approved by the FDA during the research – as well as considerably more depression cases now than a decade ago, e! Science News informs.