Antidepressant Use for Kids Doubled Before FDA Warnings

Forbes (USA): Even as concerns about teen suicide and antidepressant use surfaced during the last decade, prescriptions for the mood-altering drugs increased dramatically as therapy sessions declined, new research shows. And, while guidelines call for initially treating childhood depression with psychotherapy -- and medication plus psychotherapy only in the most serious cases -- many teens received only medication, including drugs not approved for use by children, Stanford University School of Medicine researchers said. Although only Prozac was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for use with children, the majority of antidepressant prescriptions issued in the years covered by the study -- 1995 through 2002 -- were for newer, non-approved medications. Up until two years before the FDA mandated black-box warnings on antidepressants warning of potential dangers to kids, the research found that: (1) Doctor visits for pediatric depression more than doubled from 1995 to 2002. In 1995, there were 1.44 million visits for depression; by 2002, that figure had risen to 3.22 million and (2) At the same time, the number of visits in which antidepressants were prescribed rose from 47 percent in 1995 to 52 percent in 2002. And psychotherapy or mental-health counseling declined from 83 percent to 68 percent.