New York – More than 20 percent of American adults took at least one drug for conditions like anxiety and depression in 2010, according to an analysis of prescription data, including more than one in four women.
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The report, released Wednesday by pharmacy benefits manager Medco Health Solutions Inc., found that use of drugs for psychiatric and behavioral disorders rose 22 percent from 2001. The medications are most often prescribed to women aged 45 and older, but their use among men and in younger adults climbed sharply. In adults 20 to 44, use of antipsychotic drugs and treatments for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder more than tripled, and use of anti-anxiety drugs like Xanax, Valium and Ativan rose 30 percent from a decade ago.
The statistics were taken from Medco’s database of prescriptions and is based on 2.5 million patients with 24 months of continuous prescription drug insurance and eligibility.
The company said women are twice as likely as men to use anxiety treatments, as 11 percent of women 45 to 65 are on an anxiety medication. Women are also more likely than men to take antipsychotic drugs like Zyprexa, Risperdal, and Abilify, which treat disorders like bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. However, among men 20 to 64, use of the drugs has quadrupled over the last decade.
“There has been a significant uptick in the use of medications to treat a variety of mental health problems; what is not as clear is if more people — especially women, are actually developing psychological disorders that require treatment, or if they are more willing to seek out help and clinicians are better at diagnosing these conditions than they once were,” said Dr. David Muzina, a psychiatrist and national practice leader of Medco’s Neuroscience Therapeutic Resource Center.
Pharmaceutical companies have also sought and received approvals to market their drugs to larger groups of people.
Drugs for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder are prescribed to boys more often than girls, but adult women now take the drugs more often than men. ADHD prescriptions to adult women grew 2.5 times from 2001. However ADHD prescriptions for children have been declining since 2005.
That reflects a decline in prescriptions for psychiatric and behavioral drugs for children. Medco found that prescriptions of those drugs for children have dropped since 2004, when the FDA warned they were linked to suicidal thoughts when used in people under 19. The company said less than 1 percent of children use antipsychotics drugs, although the figure has doubled since 2001.
In the “diabetes belt” states of Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi and Alabama, about 23 percent of people are on at least one psychiatric or behavioral disorder drug. Diabetes is particularly widespread in those states and the condition is associated with higher levels of depression and anxiety disorders. The lowest rate of prescriptions was found in Indiana, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Michigan, where less than 15 percent of people are using those medications.
what is not as clear is if more people — especially women, are actually developing psychological disorders that require treatment, or if they are more willing to seek out help and clinicians are better at diagnosing these conditions than they once were,”
Unfortunately its pretty clear that today more people are developing those conditions because of the information age, we have to read the latest cancer report, the latest news on a nuclear war, we constantly are exposed to negetive situations so subconciously we become anxious, and we don’t even know why we are anxious.
And the funny thing is, people won’t admit it, but most of the time the most successful people suffer the most from anxiaty.
Also the high standard of living and the fact that we have to live the perfect live puts a tremendous pressure on a lot of poeple.
As long as they dont smoke and are on a low carb diet, what do you expect?
Very scary so many unstable people around.
It is very obvious that our diet is a large contributor. The foods available to us lack in proper nutrients creating long term chemical effects in our system. Even our veggies are modified and treated to the point of losing their natural benefits.
remember, there are many different levels of behavioral issues. there are the severe , the moderate, the minimal etc.
there are also those that find they get depressed if they cant keep up with the cohenses too. people need to think carefully about what is important and what is not. we all need to be thankful and grateful for every brach athat Hashem has bestowed upon us rather than always seeing the cup as half empty.
There are so many contributing factors. Another issue is that many who are currently on meds would benefit from self-help or counseling, but it’s so much easier (in the short term) to “just take a pill.”
Start smoking!
The more people that are taking some medications may not result in an unstabile socity but rather a society of people who actually sought treatment. This is clearly an improvement. And if you are sitting around your house with much disasters at your hands and you refuse medication, you might just be the “unstabile” person that is the true concern for our future. No need to mock or ridicule persons who have physicians and are in a treatment protocol. Watch out for the untreated majority who refuse any psychiatric pharmacologic support. To those jews who like Commenter 3 above denigrate this population, you should be ashamed. I imagine you are next in line to the doctor.