According to a study involving researchers from the UPV/EHU’s Faculty of Pharmacy, new prescriptions for antidepressants increased significantly during the pandemic, and even more so during the post-pandemic period, with the increase being greater in women than in men. During the pandemic, the increase in the prescription of antidepressants was specifically due to an increase among people under the age of 20, while in the post-pandemic period, the increase has occurred in all age groups.

The study, published by the journal ‘Healthcare’, indirectly estimated retrospectively the incidence of new cases of depression by analysing new prescriptions for antidepressants over a period of six years, divided into three two-year periods: pre-pandemic, pandemic and post-pandemic, from March 2018 to February 2024. The research was carried out in a healthcare area with 130,000 people in the Basque Country.

The two-year duration of the COVID-19 pandemic was found to have exerted a significant effect on the first-time prescription of antidepressants in the public health system, mainly among women under 40. In line with these results, a study carried out in Canada stated that women reported poorer self-perceived mental health than men during the pandemic period from September to December 2020. Furthermore, and in the same vein, some authors have found an increase in the consumption of antidepressants by young women since the beginning of the pandemic. The authors of the study pointed out that “the greatest impact on the emotional well-being of young women during the pandemic could be ascribed to their role as carers, which is more prevalent in the female population, and to the feminisation of caring professions in the health sector, which endured a high emotional burden during that period”. Similar results were also found in France, where there was a greater increase in antidepressant prescriptions for women compared with men during the pandemic period as opposed to the pre-pandemic period.

Post-pandemic consumption

Surprisingly, however, once the COVID-19 pandemic had been largely resolved, it was observed that men and women of all age groups (except men under 20) had a higher incidence of new depressive symptoms, estimated from new prescriptions for antidepressants, despite the fact that in-person access to health systems was guaranteed or at least more normalised in that period than during the pandemic. “The analysis detected a greater long-term impact of the pandemic on the emotional health of the population, which may be due to several factors. Although the restrictions on movement were eased, the prolonged social isolation endured by the majority of the population may have had lasting consequences on the way people interact and feel connected with others,” they stressed. Furthermore, the economic impact of the pandemic, such as job losses and financial insecurity, continues to affect the mental wellbeing of many people.

What is more, “maintaining a state of sustained stress during the pandemic could be one of the main causes of the higher incidence of depressive symptoms in the general population in the long term”. In many cases, grief over the loss of loved ones or significant life changes during the pandemic prevent a return to normality and continue to affect mental health in the long term,” the researchers added.

The authors emphasise that one of the limitations of the study is that new prescriptions for antidepressants are not given exclusively to patients with depressive symptoms, as these drugs are also prescribed for other conditions such as anxiety, insomnia or chronic pain.

So based on the experience gained during the pandemic, access by the general population to pharmacological and non-pharmacological therapies needs to be facilitated to prevent an increase in the incidence of depression should a similar situation arise in the future. Likewise, in these situations, greater attention should be paid to certain age groups, especially women under 40, as this group has been observed to be particularly sensitive.