How many school-age children are taking anti-depressants? Results of a Freedom of Information request published in The Guardian suggest nearly 170,000 children in England were prescribed drugs like Fluoxetine (also known as Prozac) to treat depression and anxiety between April 2015 and June 2016, an increase of almost 12 per cent since the previous year (Number of under-18s on antidepressants in England rises by 12%, Guardian, June 2017).
Medicating so many school-age children is worrying for a number of reasons. Putting aside doubt over whether such drugs are actually effective on young people, the increasing numbers of doctors reaching for their prescription pads is likely to be explained, at least in part, by the scant availability of so-called talking therapies for children.
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