Antidepressant prescriptions for children have increased over the past three years in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland, according to investigations by BBC’s current-affairs radio program File on 4.
The figures pertain to a powerful class of antidepressants referred to as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). Numbers of prescriptions for these drugs rose from 290,393 to 330,616 from 2015-16 to 2017-18 respectively, according to BBC’s File on 4 findings which were obtained by Freedom of Information requests. The figures from Wales were not available as they don’t hold the data.
