The use of psychiatric drugs by children and adolescents has more than doubled in the last decade, according to research released yesterday, January 14, in the journal The Archives of Pediatrics Medicine. Researchers from the University of Maryland tracked 900,000 children from 1987 to 1996 and discovered large increases in the use of stimulants, antidepressants and mood stabilizers.
The study found that the percentage of American youth using psychotropic drugs rose from 2.5 percent to 6.7 percent, and that twice as many boys took psychiatric drugs than did girls in 1996. Both genders were found to have been taking these drugs for longer periods of time.
Researchers stopped short of explaining what impact the drugs may have on our youth, and it remains in dispute whether the increase is good or bad. Advocates of psychotropic treatment argue that the mental heath community is more effectively treating psychological problems today that might otherwise have been overlooked in the past, thus preventing illnesses from worsening. Opponents, on the other hand, worry that the long-term effects of these drugs may cause other, unforeseen mental problems, especially when administered during puberty.
