AUTHOR=Benistand Paul , Vorilhon Philippe , Laporte Catherine , Bouillon-Minois Jean-Baptiste , Brousse Georges , Bagheri Reza , Ugbolue Ukadike Chris , Baker Julien S. , Flaudias Valentin , Mulliez Aurélien , Dutheil Frédéric 

TITLE=Effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the psychotropic drug consumption

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychiatry

VOLUME=13

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychiatry/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2022.1020023

DOI=10.3389/fpsyt.2022.1020023

ISSN=1664-0640

ABSTRACT=<sec><title>Importance</title><p>Although 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.</p></sec><sec><title>Objective</title><p>The 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).</p></sec><sec><title>Design, settings, and participants</title><p>Prescriptions 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.</p></sec><sec><title>Main outcomes and measures</title><p>Consumption of psychotropic drugs was aggregated in months and expressed in number of boxes per thousand inhabitants.</p></sec><sec><title>Results</title><p>During 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, <italic>p</italic>&lt;0.001) boxes per month per thousand inhabitants, all classes of psychotropic drugs combined. Three classes saw their consumption increase in an almost similar proportion, respectively, by 0.23 (0.15 to 0.32, <italic>p</italic>&lt;0.001) boxes for antidepressants, 0.27 (0.20 to 0.34, <italic>p</italic>&lt;0.001) boxes for anxiolytics and 0.23 (0.17 to 0.30, <italic>p</italic>&lt;0.001) boxes for hypnotics. The change in antipsychotic consumption was very small, with an increase of 0.04 boxes (0.02 to 0.06, <italic>p</italic> = 0.001) per month per thousand population.</p></sec><sec><title>Conclusion and relevance</title><p>The COVID-19 pandemic had led to an increase in the consumption of psychotropic drugs, confirming the significant impact of the pandemic on the mental health of the general population.</p></sec>