Psychiatric drugs given to children and adolescents have been ranked in order of safety

Mental disorders frequently begin in childhood or adolescence. Early intervention may be key to helping people recover. Every year, millions of under-18s are prescribed powerful medicines that affect behaviour, mood, thoughts or perceptions (psychotropic medicines) at a time when their developing brains and bodies are acutely sensitive. Some minors receive medications that have been tested and approved for use only in adults.

Dozens of drugs prescribed for psychiatric disorders in children and adolescents have been ranked in order of safety by an international team of psychiatrists. The drugs are prescribed for mental health conditions including depression, psychosis, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and mood disorders.

All drugs can have unwanted side effects (adverse effects). The researchers looked at published reports of adverse effects of drugs given to young people with psychiatric disorders.

The study is intended to help clinicians and psychiatrists choose the most tolerable drugs for children and adolescents, according to available evidence. They brought together reports of side effects that are currently buried across hundreds of individual scientific papers.

Researchers sifted the data to find the drugs for which there were reports on at least 16 of the 78 adverse effects. Only 19 (of 80) drugs passed this cut-off point.

Strikingly, the study found that for many medications there are no, or insufficient, high quality data on adverse effects in this age group. The researchers urge psychiatrists and doctors to be cautious in prescribing drugs with limited data to children and adolescents. They suggest that medications with safer profiles should be preferred as first-line treatment.

Source: https://evidence.nihr.ac.uk/alert/psychiatric-drugs-given-to-children-and-adolescents-have-been-ranked-in-order-of-safety/

What are your thoughts on this article?

#Medication #Adolescents #MentalHealth