Scottish Daily Mail

Huge increase in children handed anti-depressant­s

Fears over a ‘Prozac nation’ with 24,000 young people put on pills

- By Victoria Allen Scottish Health Reporter

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’

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