Wellness means what exactly and for whom?
Declining mental health
NY Times Coronavirus Brief 7/11/22
The pandemic’s true toll on our mental health won’t be known for some time, but we’re beginning to see some of the initial signs in our medicine cabinets.
Since early 2020, millions of Americans have started or restarted psychiatric medication to cope with the pandemic’s ripple effects. Tracking exactly which pills Americans are taking is difficult because much of this information is privately held, but Casey Schwartz, the author of “Attention, a Love Story,” dug into data provided to The New York Times and began to assemble a snapshot of the current state of our mental health.
The gist: In 2019, the C.D.C. estimated that 15.8 percent of American adults took prescription pills for mental health. Now, nearly a quarter do so.
Antidepressants are the most commonly prescribed mental heath medication in the U.S. Their rate of use increased to 8.7 percent from 2019 to 2021, compared with 7.9 percent from 2017 to 2019, according to Express Scripts, a pharmacy benefits manager. Teenagers had a 17.3 percent increase in the use of anxiety medications in the first two years of the pandemic, compared with a 9.3 percent rate of change between 2017 and 2019.
Similar jumps can be seen in the use of stimulants, like Adderall. In 2021, just under 77 million prescriptions were written for A.D.H.D. stimulant medications, nearly six million more than in 2020. Among Americans ages 20 to 44, use of A.D.H.D. medications increased by 16.7 percent from 2019 to 2021, compared with a 7 percent increase from 2017 to 2019.
Across the country, many psychologists and psychiatrists have been witnessing the pandemic’s mental health effects firsthand. They report practices filled to capacity, patients who are in significantly worse shape than before, or patients who had been stable for years, but who are now in need of medication, intensive outpatient treatment or hospitalization.
These rising medication numbers aren’t necessarily caused only by a worsening of mental health in this country, although rates of anxiety and depression have increased. Part of the uptick could be explained by the fact that, stuck at home, people finally had time to seek out the health care they had been delaying.
And emergency legislation, passed in the early days of the pandemic, may have played a role. The new rules lifted the requirement that doctors see patients in person in order to prescribe them certain controlled substances, including Adderall.
Even so, patients seeking help are doing so against a backdrop of isolation, restriction, uncertainty and grief.
“I think what a lot of people are trying to avoid talking about is trauma: People were traumatized by Covid,” said Alex Stratyner, a psychologist in New York. “Millions of people have died. There has not been a processing on a grand scale of what it is we just endured.”
However, some contextual questions to consider?
Is the increase due to the pandemic and reduction of stigma? or as the article stated, increased access to providers due to virtual appointments?
How is the poor health infrastructure contributing to the problem? or is it making it better?
Is the use of medication a confirmation that more people are being responsive to their needs with engaging professionals?
What must be done to have the best mental health individually and collectively?
Will the pandemic create the need for families to develop a healthy coping toolbox?
Again, wellness means what exactly and for whom?
Reach out to a professional for assistance. Start with your primary care physician, health insurance provider, or search for treatment at samhsa.gov