the consumption of anxiolytics and hypnotics has increased in France since March 2020

The health crisis and its successive confinements have profoundly changed the consumption of medicines by the French. This is what emerges froma report made public, Thursday May 27, by the scientific interest group Epi-Phare, formed by the National Health Insurance Fund and the National Medicines Safety Agency, the sixth on this subject. These data relate to city drugs, prescribed in pharmacies, from March 16, 2020, the first day of the first confinement until April 25, 2021, i.e. during the three waves of the Covid-19 epidemic. In total, fifty-five therapeutic classes and 4 billion drug prescriptions were compared to the expected number of prescriptions (calculated on the basis of use in the same period of the two previous years).

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The numbers illustrate the deterioration of mental health. Strong trend since the start of the pandemic, psychotropic drugs, such as anxiolytics such as Xanax, Lexomil, Temesta, Lysanxia, ​​etc., increased over the period from March 2020 to April 2021 (with 3.4 million prescriptions more than expected), 7% in 2020 and 10% over the first months of 2021, just like hypnotics, commonly called sleeping pills, such as Stilnox, Imovane (+ 1.4 million), or antipsychotics (+ 440,000). “There has been a medicalization of anxiety disorders and sleep disorders”, summarizes Alain Weill, deputy director of Epi-Phare.

The phenomenon intensified in 2021. “These are drugs that respond to anxiety and sleep disorders without necessarily being linked to a specific diagnosis, there is a risk of self-medication, these products are a bit like Doliprane for anxiety, says Professor Antoine Pelissolo, head of the psychiatry department at the CHU Henri-Mondor in Créteil (Val-de-Marne). This illustrates the observation made for several months, the increase in mental suffering, especially depression. “ Antidepressants, with a time lag, have also been prescribed more.

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While the recommendations aim to reduce the use of these molecules, which were rather down, albeit slightly, in recent years, “The introduction of antidepressants (+ 23%), anxiolytics (+ 15%) and hypnotics (+ 26%) for new patients are growing very strongly in 2021”, underlines the Epi-Phare report. “We have never seen increases of this order, it is exceptional”, describes Mr. Weill.

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