Huge increase in children handed anti-depressants
Fears over a ‘Prozac nation’ with 24,000 young people put on pills
SOARING numbers of children in Scotland are being prescribed anti-depressants amid warnings many are struggling to cope with modern life.
A Parliamentary response has revealed a spike in prescriptions among young people, with almost 24,000 under-21s taking anti-depressants last year, up from 13,816 in 2009.
The figures show the ‘Prozac nation’ identified north of the Border now includes schoolchildren as well as their parents, with the pressure of social media feared to be behind the rising rates.
It follows soaring numbers of eating disorders among youngsters and warnings that children are less resilient because of broken families. Anti-depressants can also be given to children suffering epileptic fits and bed-wetting, but experts believe the figures point to a mental health ‘epidemic’, calling for more counselling instead of drugs.
Clinical psychologist Dr Vincent Egan, from Nottingham University but previously based in Scotland, said: ‘Children are under greater social pressures. They face the importance of looking “right”.’
He said social media made children compete to create ‘illusory worlds’ of ‘shiny, happy lives, which could make them feel their lives are not as good as they should be’.
More than 4,400 children and teenagers started mental health treatment in the first three months of this year alone.
But Dr Egan believes that antidepressants are handed out too easily to people of this age because they are ‘cheaper’.
Scotland’s largest health board, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, has reported a leap in the number of under-18s prescribed the drugs of more than 50 per cent, from 722 in 2010-11 to almost 1,100 in 2014-15.
A spokesman for the Scottish Children’s Services Coalition said: ‘We need to ensure that we provide well-resourced services, such as talking therapies, to tackle issues such as depression, before resorting to the prescription pad.’
With Scotland in what it called ‘the midst of a mental health epidemic’, the body called for a prevention and early intervention strategy to help young people.
Experts say children should learn about mental health from primary school, so they are able to ask for help, while more counselling is needed in secondary school.
It follows figures showing the number of children taken to hospital with eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia rose from 44 to 64 in the two years to 2013-14.
Scottish Conservative mental health spokesman Miles Briggs, who uncovered the anti-depressant figures through a parliamentary question, said: ‘We want to see a new focus on the provision of social prescribing and swift access to talking therapies, with antidepressants as a last resort.’
A Scottish Government spokesman said there was good evidence that GPs treat depression appropriately and that it was committed to improving access to psychological therapies’.
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde confirmed it was treating more youngsters with mental health problems, with anxiety medication sometimes prescribed as a muscle relaxant for seizures.
A spokesman added: ‘The majority of young people are treated with psychological therapies. However, in instances of increased severity, the prescribing of medication can also be an option.’
‘Mental health epidemic’