How Onset Of COVID Led To Surge In Antidepressant Use Among Young Girls

A recent study has brought to light a disconcerting pattern: there seems to be a significant correlation between the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic and a surge in antidepressant usage among young girls. Published in the journal Pediatrics, the research highlights the deep effect the pandemic has had on the mental well-being of this susceptible demographic.

Focusing on young girls aged between 12 and 25, the study sheds light on the impact of the pandemic on their mental health, revealing a substantial uptick in the use of antidepressants as the mental well-being of many young women appears to be under considerable strain.

Connection Between COVID Pandemic & Soaring Antidepressant Usage Among Young Girls

The study analyzed prescription data and found a significant rise in antidepressant prescriptions for girls between the ages of 12 and 17 following the initial COVID-19 lockdowns. Researchers suggest that factors such as isolation, disruption of routines, academic uncertainty, and increased anxiety likely contributed to this rise in mental health concerns.

Lead author Kao Ping Chua, a paediatrician and researcher at the University of Michigan Health C.S. Mott Children's Hospital, noted that the usage of antidepressants was already on the rise before March 2020, but multiple studies coupled with this study together suggest that the trends in antidepressant dispensing must have amplified during the pandemic in women, as the pandemic exasperated pre-existing mental health crises amongst young women.

Contrary to the trend of antidepressant dispensing found in young women, the study also found no evident changes in the dispensing of antidepressants in young males after March 2020; instead, there was a decline rate in most young males' consumption of the antidepressants. 

The study gave statistics showing that usage of antidepressants rose to 64% after March 2020 in people aged 12–25 years. This increase in consumption rate was more profound in women, with up to a 130% rise in women aged 12–17 years, and a 60% rise in rates among women aged 18–25 years.

Chua suggested that the overall rise in dispensing antidepressants does not solely depend on the worsened mental health crisis but on other factors that could have contributed to this rise, such as waitlists for psychotherapy, difficulties assessing timely therapies, that could have left doctors with no choice but to have a pragmatic approach and prescribe antidepressants to patients waiting for 6–9 months where the therapy-only approach was not available.