학술논문
Effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the psychotropic drug consumption
Document Type
article
Author
Source
Frontiers in Psychiatry, Vol 13 (2022)
Subject
Language
English
ISSN
1664-0640
Abstract
ImportanceAlthough the COVID-19 pandemic has had a negative impact on mental health, there is no comprehensive longitudinal study of the entire population of a country without selection bias.ObjectiveThe objective of this study was to evaluate the prescription of psychotropic drugs during the COVID-19 pandemic, using data from the French national health data system (SNDS).Design, settings, and participantsPrescriptions for psychotropic drugs (antidepressants, anxiolytics, hypnotics, and antipsychotics) from 1 January 2015 to 30 September 2021 were collected from administrative data provided by the SNDS. This database includes more than 99% of the French population, i.e., 67 million people. The data were analyzed using an interrupted time series analysis (ITSA) model.Main outcomes and measuresConsumption of psychotropic drugs was aggregated in months and expressed in number of boxes per thousand inhabitants.ResultsDuring the study period, more than 1.3 billion boxes of psychotropic medications were dispensed. Comparison of psychotropic drug dispensing before and after the pandemic showed a relative increase of 0.76 (95 CI 0.57 to 0.95, p