THE CONSUMPTION OF ANTIDEPRESSANTS

EXPLODES AMONG YOUNG PEOPLE

The finding is alarming.

The phenomenon concerns tens of thousands of children. The level of prescription of psychotropic drugs concerns one in twenty children, specifies the HCFEA.

Alarming figures that can be explained in the light of other studies; one recently reported 62% of 18-24 year olds having suicidal thoughts. One in four young people (from the age of 12) would say they are unhappy.

Prescriptions of psychotropic drugs are often made without marketing authorization (AMM), warns the HCFEA, as appropriate drugs do not exist for children. According to the report, this is the case for 40% of prescriptions in the city, and between 67 and 94% of those issued in hospitals.

Multiple responsibilities

The Covid and successive confinements have had a deleterious effect on the health of children, according to the report. Suicidal gestures or feelings of anxiety are also on the rise.

This scourge of drug use which strikes young people in France has already largely affected the United States with Ritalin. Added to this question of the use and over-prescription of drugs is the “hyper-digitized” environment and the confinement of the mind behind smartphones and screens. The constant influx of information with their doses of anxiety (identity, climate, etc.) is an assault on brains. It was also without counting on digital addictions, to pornography in particular. The role of parents, sometimes resigning, sometimes disoriented, can also explain this trend, like that of the school, which is less and less protected.

Mental health is therefore a public health issue of prime importance in children, in France as in Western countries. When they occur early, mental disorders and psychological suffering impact a lifetime.

The decline in the supply of care in question

However "the pediatric, child psychiatric and medico-social offer is in decline and no longer allows children and families to be accommodated within a reasonable time", notes the HCFEA. In the absence of specialists, the majority of child consultations are carried out by the general practitioner. "Only 30% of children are seen by a pediatrician, who concentrates his patient population on children under two."

The ill-being of children and adolescents is therefore accentuated by a deficit in the supply of care, notes the report which points to a lack of specialists and school medicine whose situation is deteriorating.

Consultations in educational medical centers (CMP) were divided by four. The report denounces a "scissor effect" between this vertiginous increase in the consumption of drugs and the drop in the supply of care in France.

As a result, the support is not up to the challenges

However, psychotherapeutic practices: psychoanalysis, psychodynamic and clinical practices, cognitive and behavioral therapies, family and group therapies, etc. are the most suitable for mental disorders in young people. For certain cases only, a medicinal treatment can be prescribed as a second intention, in support of the psychological, educational and social accompaniment of the child and his family.

Not only does the HCFEA insist on the non-compliance with Marketing Authorizations and on the transgression of the recommendations of health agencies and scientific consensus, but it is alarmed at the substitution of psychotherapeutic, educational and social practices by practices medicated.

Faced with the deep malaise that affects a large part of the youth, it is time to react.

"The health and mental well-being of children is a concern that must mobilize the whole of society. All actors in the fields of educational and social action must provide a response", indicates the HCFEA.