Coronavirus pandemic fuels increase in drug use for anxiety, depression and insomnia
- Prescription anti-anxiety drug use in the US rose 34 per cent in the space of a month, and three-quarters were new prescriptions
- ‘Whenever you have a loss of control or a great deal of uncertainty, anxiety is likely to increase. The pandemic is like that on steroids,’ a psychologist says
To cope with mental health conditions during the coronavirus pandemic, people are increasingly turning to prescription drugs like antidepressants and benzodiazepines, which are commonly used as anti-anxiety (anxiolytic) medications.
A report released this month by Express Scripts, a US-based pharmacy benefit management programme, found that the use of prescription drugs to treat mental health conditions increased more than 20 per cent in America between mid-February and mid-March, peaking the week of March 15, when the World Health Organisation declared Covid-19 a pandemic.
During that same time frame, prescriptions for anti-anxiety medications rose 34 per cent, while prescriptions for antidepressants increased by 18 per cent. Of the prescriptions filled during that time, more than three-quarters were new prescriptions.
Before the pandemic, prescriptions for anxiolytic medications decreased 12 per cent between 2015 and 2019, the report found. “We’re using antidepressants more and more to treat both anxiety and depression,” said Michael Liebowitz, a professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University in New York.
Liebowitz said the recent spike in anti-anxiety medications is likely due to the fact that “traditional anxiety medications have the advantage of being quick acting, unlike antidepressants, which can take six to 10 weeks to begin working”.