Pandemia had an important weight on the mental health of many people. It is a statement that probably does not surprise many, but sometimes quantify what seems obvious can help us put it in perspective.
New study. A study led by researchers from the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) has verified an increase in the prescription of antidepressant drugs in recent years. This allows us to illustrate, even indirectly, the important cost of the Covid-19 pandemic in terms of mental health.
The weight of a pandemic. Five years of the expansion of the COVID-19 by Europe have been completed. An expansion that brought confinements, currency touches, social distancing and many other containment measures.
Pandemia affected our mental health in various ways. He did it directly, the result of fear and uncertainty; as well as for the loss, whether the loss of a loved one, of the job or even leisure. Pandemia also had an indirect weight, a consequence of preventive measures: less outdoor access, less social contacts and more restricted, less opportunities to do sports … All these factors have the potential to cause us a loss of psychological well -being.
March 2018 – February 2024. The new study analyzed antidepressant prescriptions in a medical care area with 130,000 people in the Basque Country between March 2018 and February 2024. For the analysis these six years were divided into three phases of two years each: Prepandymia, Pandemia and Postpandymus.
The details of the study were published in an article in the magazine Healthcare.
Far from going back. The team observed an upward trend in the prescriptions of this type of drugs, but highlight some details detected in the study. The first, the fact that the increase in these prescriptions was not reversed in the postpandemic period. Instead, the team confirmed a new increase in the consumption of these treatments.
Another detected pattern has to do with age. The team observed that, although the increase in the pandemic period was due “specifically” to the increase in its prescription between under 20 years, the increase in the postpandemic period was distributed among all age groups.
Generalized results. The team responsible for the work detected another pattern that studies in other countries had already shown. And it is that the increase in antidepressant consumption occurred, especially, in women. Something also observed in countries such as Canada or France.
“The greatest impact on the emotional well -being of young women during the pandemic could be due to the role of caregivers, which is more prevalent in the female population, and the feminization of care professions in the health sector, which had a high emotional load during that period,” explains in a press release the team responsible for the work.
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Imagen | Yoav Aziz / Shvets Production
