Psychotropic Prescriptions During the COVID-19 Pandemic Among U.S. Children and Adolescents Receiving Mental Health Services.

Objective: Increased mental health problems among children and adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic may have impacted psychotropic medication use. This study describes trends in monthly psychotropic medications before and early in the COVID-19 pandemic among 2- to 17-year-old children and adolescents with mental health disorders. Methods: A cross-sectional study design using the 2019-2020 IQVIA™ prescription and medical commercial claims data to estimate the proportion of children and adolescents with any psychotropic prescription in the month out of all with any mental health-related medical or prescription services in the month and the year-over-year percent change. We assessed monthly proportions of youth who filled a psychotropic prescription overall and by psychotropic class, stratified by age and gender. Results: Of the 8,896,713 children and adolescents in the sample, 24.7% received psychotropic medication during the study period. The proportion of the cohort prescribed a psychotropic medication in a given month averaged 27%-28% from January 2019 to February 2020, peaked at 36.9% in April 2020, and gradually declined to 28.7% in September 2020. The largest year-over-year percent change was in April for antipsychotic (41.9%) and antidepressant (37.9%) medication, which remained higher in September 2020 compared to September 2019, particularly among ages 6 years or older and females. Conclusion: The proportion of youth with a psychotropic prescription increased at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, later returning to prepandemic levels. However, antipsychotics and antidepressants remained higher than prepandemic, highlighting the need to further understand the long-lasting effects of the pandemic on children and adolescents.