Variations in Dispensing Psychotropic Drugs to Adolescents Depending on School Periods: A French Nationwide Retrospective Study.

Seasonality patterns are reported for various psychiatric disorders. Concerning adolescents, there is an increased frequency of general emergency department visits for mental health disorders observed between March and May, as well as in October and November. We conducted a retrospective cohort study using the French health insurance medico-administrative database. We extracted psychotropic drug deliveries occurring between 2015 and 2019 for patients aged between 12 and 18 years old. Each drug delivery was classified as occurring during a school period (Sc), the summer holidays (SumH) or other shorter holidays periods (ShH). We compared the number of distinct patients, as well as the proportion of new consumers, according to week status. Anxiolytics and hypnotics were more frequently dispensed during the school periods and short breaks than during the summer holidays. Conversely, antidepressants were more commonly dispensed during the short breaks rather than school periods and summer holidays. The stressful effects induced by schooling appear to be addressed in the first line by anxiolytics and hypnotics, while antidepressants are more frequently introduced during school holidays.

Reuse of Adverse Effect Reports from the French National Agency of Medicines: A Visual Analytic Tool to Improve Patient Safety.

Adverse drug reaction are defined as "harmful or unpleasant reaction, resulting from an intervention related to the use of a medicinal product". In France, adverse effects due to medicines are reported to the French National Agency of Medicines (ANSM) by the healthcare professionals or consumers. The objective of this study was to implement a tool that facilitates the utilization of ANSM reports by synthesizing information to effectively inform prescribers and users. We focused on 3 psychotropic classes: antidepressants, antipsychotics and anxiolytics. We extracted relevant data from the ANSM website through a webscraping process, based on the names of molecules in these 3 classes: antidepressants, antipsychotics, and anxiolytics. We implemented a web interface with R Shiny that provides three panels: (i) a presentation of the active ingredient with the fewest reports for a selected adverse effect category, (ii) the adverse reactions for a selected active ingredient ranked in descending order, and (iii) a comparison of two active ingredients where, for each adverse effect, the active ingredient with the fewest reported adverse drug events (ADEs) is displayed. Our application allows for synthesizing information to effectively inform prescribers and users. In the ANSM existing interface, molecules can only be viewed one by one, and the ratio needs to be calculated manually, making it difficult to compare molecules. It is important to note that this is not a prescription assistance device but rather for informational purposes. In the future, the application may be expanded to include other categories of molecules. Finally, the indicators provided by our tool could be compared to those from other pharmacovigilance databases.

Prolonged increase in psychotropic drug use among young women following the COVID-19 pandemic: a French nationwide retrospective study.

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on mental health, with evidence suggesting an enduring mental health crisis. Studies worldwide observed increased usage of antidepressants, anxiolytics, and hypnotics during the pandemic, notably among young people and women. However, few studies tracked consumption post-2021. Our study aimed to fill this gap by investigating whether the surge in the number psychotropic drug consumers in France persisted 2 years after the first lockdown, particularly focusing on age and gender differences. METHODS: We conducted a national retrospective observational study based on the French national insurance database. We retrieved all prescriptions of anxiolytics, hypnotics, and antidepressants dispensed in pharmacies in France for the period 2015-2022. We performed interrupted time series analyses based on Poisson models for five age classes (12-18; 19-25; 26-50; 51-75; 76 and more) to assess the trend before lockdown, the gap induced and the change in trend after. RESULTS: In the overall population, the number of consumers remained constant for antidepressants while it decreased for anxiolytics and hypnotics. Despite this global trend, a long-term increase was observed in the 12-18 and 19-25 groups for the three drug classes. Moreover, for these age classes, the increases were more pronounced for women than men, except for hypnotics where the trends were similar. CONCLUSIONS: The number of people using antidepressants continues to increase more than 2 years after the first lockdown, showing a prolonged effect on mental health. This effect is particularly striking among adolescents and young adults confirming the devastating long-term impact of the pandemic on their mental health.