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The consumption of medications for anxiety, depression and sleep problems increased 4% during the first wave

2020-12-04T11:57:59.576Z


Between January and September, 4.4 million more packages were sold to exceed 110 million Covid is not just a respiratory disease. The pandemic is also wreaking havoc on mental health. And one of the indicators is the increase in drugs sold to treat anxiety, sleep problems or depression. The consumption of these substances for the central nervous system rose 4.1% between January and September in Spain during the first wave of the coronavirus, according to data from IQVIA, a company spe


Covid is not just a respiratory disease.

The pandemic is also wreaking havoc on mental health.

And one of the indicators is the increase in drugs sold to treat anxiety, sleep problems or depression.

The consumption of these substances for the central nervous system rose 4.1% between January and September in Spain during the first wave of the coronavirus, according to data from IQVIA, a company specialized in health information.

In these nine months, 4.4 million more packages of these products have been sold, reaching 110.7 million in total.

The increase varies between 4.8% increase in antipsychotics, up to 11.8 million units, and 3.2% in hypnotics and sedatives (17.3 million boxes).

They also suffered a 4.2% increase in tranquilizers (44.6 million total packages) and 4.1% in antidepressants (a total of 37 million units).

Data from the Business Federation of Spanish Pharmacists (FEFE) indicate that the consumption of this group of products did not rise last year, so in principle the increase could be attributed to the direct effects of the covid.

However, it is still early to be able to measure all these effects, warns Celso Arango, president of the Spanish Society of Psychiatry, who does confirm that anxiety, depression and sleep problems are three complications associated with the coronavirus.

"The increase in drug use is nothing more than the result of the increase in symptoms due to covid," he says.

The professor of Psychology at the Complutense University of Madrid, María Paz García-Vega, affirms that “at the moment we do not have any study of sufficient quality to quantify this increase in a reliable and valid way.

What we do have are some indicators that the disorders may have increased. "

Analyzing the consumption of these drugs is an aid to measure an impact that, at the moment, is very difficult to measure.

“For the study of the psychological and mental consequences produced by the existence of this pandemic, we should wait months, and even years, to be able to analyze them with precision and an acceptable degree of certainty.

Immersed as we are currently in the chaos caused by the coronavirus, any serious analysis would not enjoy the necessary objectivity and calm in its study ", says Fernando Gonçalves, head of the Mental Health Group of the Spanish Society of General and Family Physicians ( SEMG).

The psychiatrist, who is also the head of the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Service of the Gregorio Marañón Hospital in Madrid, distinguishes between the direct psychiatric damage that the virus could cause, which is reduced to very few cases, and that which is due to the surrounding circumstances.

In a recent article published in

The Lancet

,

which compiles

ongoing

studies on the matter and which Arango has coordinated, it is pointed out that the pandemic increases psychosocial stressors, such as “alteration of daily life, fear of the disease itself or its economic effects ”.

This time, the situation is worse than in the economic crisis, that of 2008-2014, says the psychiatrist, since in that one only increased referrals to psychiatric hospital units, which are the ones that already see the most serious cases that do not they can be managed in primary school, in 20%, "mainly due to anxiety and depression," says the psychiatrist.

At the beginning of the chain, in the primary care consultations, is Gonçalves, who is also co-author of the book

Memories of the covid-19.

Reports from Phase 1

(Red TBS-Stop Epidemics).

He has lived it like this: “The pictures of anxiety, depression and feelings of unreality have been the most manifest, to which we will add the increase in behaviors of substance abuse, such as alcohol and other drugs.

That up to now, mixed with feelings of helplessness, fragility and uncertainty, will form the ideal basis for the appearance of later mental and behavioral disorders, probably more serious, difficult to predict and specify at the present time ”.

15,170 calls to the enabled phone

Even before going to a health center, there were 15,170 people who called the phone number set up by the Ministry of Health and the General Council of Colleges of Psychologists.

In her report, published in the

Spanish Journal of Public Health

and of which García-Vega is co-author, it is reflected that “75.9% of the consultations had to do with psychological problems related to anxiety and depressive symptoms, although she also highlighted the symptoms of mourning among the sick or relatives of the sick and deceased and, to a lesser extent, the symptoms of stress in the group of interveners ”.

The latter is one of the pathologies highlighted by Arango, who estimates that 25% of the people who will require treatment were not infected, but will need help due to pathological grief, such as first-degree relatives who in the first wave could not accompany or say goodbye to the deceased.

Another approach is that of a report by a team from the Complutense University of Madrid led by María del Carmen Valiente, which in a survey of 2,070 people between April 8 and 10 (at the height of the pandemic), detected a 22 , 1% of people with significant symptoms of depression, an anxiety rate of 19.6%, and 19.7% of individuals with elevated symptoms of post-traumatic stress.

It is more than likely that many of the most affected people have not yet reached a hospital unit.

"With psychiatric patients it has happened as with the rest of the specialties: only the covid has been treated, so all our prevention and early care efforts have collapsed," says Arango.

"Just as surgeons see almost no appendicitis, but rather peritonitis, we only see patients who come to the emergency room, and we don't even have a free bed, but primary consultations have no waiting."

A UN report indicates that, during the first wave, up to 60% of the beds in mental health units were dedicated to covid patients.

The psychiatrist Celso Arango highlights two especially vulnerable groups affected by the measures against the covid.

One, minors, especially those with a disability.

Another, that of the elderly.

In this regard, Fernando Gonçales points out: “In the elderly, isolation measures, the increase in interpersonal distances, not only physical, but also emotional, with their sequelae of feelings of loneliness, abandonment and vulnerability, increase their cognitive deterioration and enhance the appearance and or the aggravation of dementias ”.

The impact of these disorders in the medium term is unclear.

“It is to be expected that some will be reversible, especially the anxiety pictures, once the times of greatest stress and insecurity and the dissipation of the very harmful current uncertainty have passed.

However, it is very likely that in many of the cases the initial psychological effects of the pandemic may have served as a trigger effect for the appearance of other more complex mental disorders and, until now, buried in the individual ”, says Gonçales.

The psychologist García-Vega states: “I would dare to say that this increase in disorders will not be so much in the general population, but in the groups of the most affected, such as health workers, patients and relatives, and all those who have lost their resources ( work, housing, etc.) ”.

“It is important to differentiate the reaction of the majority of society, which is tired, demoralized, somewhat sad or with a certain fear, which are expected and temporary symptoms, of a slight intensity, and which most likely will be temporary, little significant.

Even a little fear is okay to have, it will make people more cautious.

When we talk about disorders, we are talking about symptoms that last over time, that interfere with the functioning of people, that generate a high degree of discomfort.

At the moment, it is not possible to quantify this in Spain ”, he insists.


Information about the coronavirus

- Here you can follow the last hour on the evolution of the pandemic

- This is how the coronavirus curve evolves in the world

- Download the tracking application for Spain

- Guide to action against the disease

Source: elparis

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