{"id":37331,"date":"2018-02-14T10:00:24","date_gmt":"2018-02-14T18:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/?p=37331"},"modified":"2018-02-15T08:29:57","modified_gmt":"2018-02-15T16:29:57","slug":"are-children-overprescribed-psychiatric-medications","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/are-children-overprescribed-psychiatric-medications-0214181","title":{"rendered":"Are Children Overprescribed Psychiatric Medications?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-37336 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/pills_with_toy_rabbit-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"Two packs of red and white pills lie on the ground. A toy rabbit sits out of focus.\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" title=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/pills_with_toy_rabbit-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/pills_with_toy_rabbit.jpg 724w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>The number of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/learn-about-therapy\/issues\/child-and-adolescent-issues\">children<\/a> taking psychiatric <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/psychotropic-medication.html\">medications<\/a> has been rising over the last few decades. In 2014, the National Center for Health Statistics estimated 1 in 13 U.S. children between the ages of 6 and 17 takes medication. Many people believed the report was clear evidence that children are overmedicated. Yet a new study challenges that argument.<\/p>\n<p>According to a study published in the <em>Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology<\/em>, children are not overprescribed psychiatric drugs. Instead, the research suggests children who need psychiatric drugs might not be getting them.<\/p>\n<h2>Psychiatric Drug Use in Children<\/h2>\n<div class=\"content-fatwidget align-right\">\n\t<h2><a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/find-therapist.html\" target=\"_blank\">Find a Child Counselor<\/a><\/h2>\n\t<form action=\"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/search-redirect.html\" method=\"get\">\n\n\t\t\t\t<input required name=\"search[zipcode]\" placeholder=\"Enter ZIP or City\" class=\"inline-input\" type=\"text\" \/>\n\n\n\t\t\t<input type=\"submit\" name=\"TOS agreement\" value=\" \" class=\"inline-btn\" title=\"Search\" \/>\n\t\t\t<input type=\"hidden\" name=\"search[x_option]\" value=\"childcounselor\" \/>\n\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/advanced-search.html\" title=\"Advanced Search\">Advanced Search<\/a>\n\t<\/form>\n<\/div>\n<p>Some people are concerned about the overuse of psychiatric drugs, particularly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/drugs\/stimulants.html\">stimulants<\/a> such as Ritalin and Adderall. They often cite the increase in drug use as evidence of a problem. Others argue it is possible that more children are developing psychiatric conditions. The increase in drug use could be proportional to the new need.<\/p>\n<p>To analyze the issue, researchers investigated the number of children with a mental health <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/psychpedia\/diagnosis\">diagnosis<\/a>. Then they compared that figure to the number of children who are prescribed psychiatric drugs.<\/p>\n<p>Researchers gathered data on 6,351,482 people aged 3-24 years from the IMS LifeLink LRx National Longitudinal Prescription Database. Next, they analyzed prescription rates of three drug classes: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/drugs\/antidepressants.html\">antidepressants<\/a>, stimulants, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/drugs\/anti-psychotics.html\">antipsychotics<\/a>. The annual percentage of young people who took drugs in any of the three classes was as follows:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Ages 3-5 years: 0.8%<\/li>\n<li>Ages 6-12 years: 5.4%<\/li>\n<li>Ages 13-18 years: 7.7%<\/li>\n<li>Ages 19-24 years: 6.0%<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Next, researchers compared the known prevalence rates of various psychiatric conditions to the rate at which drugs for these conditions were prescribed. They found that prescription rates are lower than diagnosis rates. For example, about 1 in 8 teens experiences <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/learn-about-therapy\/issues\/depression\">depression<\/a> each year, but less than 1 in 30 were prescribed antidepressants. About 1 in 12 children have symptoms of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/learn-about-therapy\/issues\/adhd\">ADHD<\/a> each year, though only 1 in 20 received a stimulant prescription during the study year.<\/p>\n<p>Not all children who have a psychiatric diagnosis need medication. However, the very low rates of medication use suggest children who need medication might not be receiving it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>References:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Post by former NIMH Director Thomas Insel: Are children overmedicated? (2014, June 06). <em>NIMH.<\/em> Retrieved from https:\/\/www.nimh.nih.gov\/about\/directors\/thomas-insel\/blog\/2014\/are-children-overmedicated.shtml#2<\/li>\n<li>Sultan, R. S., Correll, C. U., Schoenbaum, M., King, M., Walkup, J. T., &amp; Olfson, M. (2018). National patterns of commonly prescribed psychotropic medications to young people. <em>Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology<\/em>. doi:10.1089\/cap.2017.0077<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Many have expressed concern about the growing number of children prescribed psychiatric drugs. A new study challenges the idea that children are overmedicated. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2555,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[542,159],"tags":[774,1160,21,119,1161],"class_list":["post-37331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured-articles","category-therapy-news","tag-antidepressants","tag-antipsychotics","tag-child-and-adolescent-issues","tag-medication","tag-stimulants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2555"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37331\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}