Pediatric Depression Diagnoses Drop

In October, 2003, the FDA issued an advisory on the increased suicidality risk stemming from the use of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors to treat pediatric depression. The authors of a study from The American Journal of Psychiatry evaluated pediatric depression diagnoses from a national database (N=65,349) from 1998–2005, and used time-series models to measure the effect of the FDA advisory on new pediatric depression diagnoses. Diagnoses increased from 1999–2004 from 3 to 5 per 1,000, but dropped to 1999 levels after the advisory, with pediatricians and primary care physicians accounting for the majority of the reduction.
http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/abstract/164/6/884

-LS