Trends in incident diagnoses and drug prescriptions for anxiety and depression during the COVID-19 pandemic: an 18-month follow-up study based on the UK Biobank.

ABSTRACT: Serious concerns have been raised about the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on population psychological well-being. However, limited data exist on the long-term effects of the pandemic on incident psychiatric morbidities among individuals with varying exposure to the pandemic. Leveraging prospective data from the community-based UK Biobank cohort, we included 308,400 participants free of diagnosis of anxiety or depression, as well as 213,757 participants free of anxiolytics or antidepressants prescriptions, to explore the trends in incident diagnoses and drug prescriptions for anxiety and depression from 16 March 2020 to 31 August 2021, compared to the pre-pandemic period (i.e., 1 January 2017 to 31 December 2019) and across populations with different exposure statuses (i.e., not

SUBMITTER: Wang Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9849101 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature