Antidepressant use among teenagers has increased substantially among teenagers since the Wuhan virus pandemic. However, a study in Pediatrics has found the increase has not been even, with use rising among teenage girls but declining among teenage boys.
“In males, it’s theoretically possible that this reflects improved mental health, but I’m struggling with that explanation,” said lead author Kao-Ping Chua, a University of Michigan Medical School pediatrician.
“Given that everybody’s mental health got worse, I would have expected that boys’ antidepressant dispensing would have at least remained stable, not decrease,” Chua continued.
“There was something happening to make male adolescents not come in for mental health. They didn’t go to their doctors. They skipped physicals,” he added, suggesting “boys are disappearing” from the mental health system and going untreated.
Given women are twice as likely to be diagnosed with depression, but men make up 80 percent of suicides in America, this trend warrants further exploration.
The study overall found a 66.3 percent surge in the monthly antidepressant dispensing rate from January 2016 to December 2022. This surge was particularly significant following the onset of the pandemic in March 2020.
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