Study Quantifies Rise in Use of Antidepressants in Treating Children, Teens
PULLMAN, Wash. -- The rate at which antidepressant drugs are prescribed for the nation's children and adolescents increased more than three fold between the early 1990s and 2001, according to a review of medical office survey data completed recently by researchers at Washington State University.
The newly reported findings - presented this week in New York to the American Psychiatric Association, and reported yesterday in the Wall Street Journal - also show that the rate at which children and adolescents are being diagnosed for depression has more than doubled during the same timeframe.
The diagnoses and prescriptions covered in the data relate primarily to teenaged patients, said David A. Sclar, Boeing Distinguished Professor of Health Policy and Administration, and lead researcher for the study. In contrast to the case with most adults, the data indicate antidepressant drug prescriptions for the young patients surveyed were written largely by psychiatrists, rather than pediatricians, family-care physicians, or other non-psychiatric doctors.
The research was drawn from the results of the annual U.S. National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey and covered doctors' office visits conducted from 1990 through 1993, 1994 through 1997, and 1998 through 2001, Sclar said.
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