Abstract:
AIM: To examine trends in antidepressant dispensing to children and young people in New Zealand aged 1-24 years between 2007/08 and 2015/16 using the national Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI), and to determine whether these trends vary by age, sex, ethnicity and socioeconomic deprivation.
METHODS: In a novel endeavour, data on antidepressant dispensing, age, sex, ethnicity and socioeconomic status were sourced from the IDI, a linked individual-level database containing New Zealand government and survey microdata.
RESULTS: The total rate of dispensing of antidepressants to young people increased by 44% from 1,870 per 100,000 in 2007/08 to 2,694 per 100,000 in 2015/16. Increases were larger for the 13-17 age group than the 1-12- or 18-24-year age groups. New Zealand European/Other ethnicities had the highest dispensing rates (3,623 out of every 100,000 people received an antidepressant in 2015/16), followed by Māori (1,980/100,000), Asian (902/100,000) and Pasifika (819/100,000) had the lowest. Dispensing rates increased with increasing deprivation, except in the most deprived quintile, where rates were lower than all other quintiles. CONCLUSION: This study demonstrates the value of utilising IDI data for health research, while providing directions for future use, including further linkage of IDI datasets. Overall there was a trend towards an increase in the use of antidepressants across all age, sex and ethnic groups, but notable variation in dispensing between different ethnic and socioeconomic groups. Despite our inability to determine the clinical rationale for increased dispensing of antidepressants, the available data highlight some potentially significant improvements as well as disparities in healthcare.
