Advertisement

More Toddlers Prescribed Drugs: Study

Share
From The Washington Post

Doctors are prescribing stimulants such as Ritalin and an anti-depressant like Prozac for preschoolers at rates that appear to be rising rapidly, according to a new study released Tuesday.

The study, which examined the use of such medicines in children ages 2 to 4 in three large health systems in different parts of the United States, found the use of such drugs had doubled or even tripled from 1991 to 1995.

The rapid increase occurred despite the fact that none of the most commonly used drugs has been approved for children under 6 and little research has been done on the medicines’ effects on children so young.

Advertisement

The study, published in today’s issue of the Journal of the American Medical Assn., analyzed data from two state Medicaid programs and a health maintenance organization and found that as many as 1.5% of children ages 2 to 4 were receiving stimulants, anti-depressants or anti-psychotic drugs. The findings suggest that, nationally, as many as 150,000 children in this age group were taking such medicines in 1995, up from about 100,000 in 1990.

Advertisement