Antidepressant or Antipsychotic Prescription Common Before Diabetes Diagnosis

Nearly one in four people with type 2 diabetes in Scotland were prescribed antidepressants before a diabetes diagnosis

WEDNESDAY, Oct. 6, 2021 (HealthDay News) — Antidepressant and antipsychotic prescribing is common prior to diagnosis of type 2 diabetes, according to a study presented at the annual meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes, held virtually from Sept. 28 to Oct. 1.

Charlotte Greene, from the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom, and colleagues evaluated the prevalence and patterns of antidepressant and antipsychotic drug prescribing prior to diagnosis of diabetes in Scotland. The analysis included 266,186 adults with type 2 diabetes.

The researchers found that 22.5 percent of patients with diabetes were prescribed antidepressants, 5.3 percent antipsychotics, and 6.6 percent both. Among individuals with diabetes prescribed antidepressants, 32.9 percent were prescribed a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, 30.5 percent a tricyclic antidepressant, 9.9 percent an antidepressant of a different subtype, and 26.8 percent antidepressants from multiple subtypes. Among prescribed antipsychotics, 80.4 percent were a first-generation antipsychotic, 14.2 percent were a second-generation antipsychotic, and 5.5 percent were from multiple subtypes. A greater proportion of people prescribed antidepressants or antipsychotics were women, lived in more socioeconomically deprived areas, were current smokers, were obese, had hypertension, and had high total cholesterol compared with those not receiving a prescription.

“More research is needed to investigate prescription patterns after diabetes diagnosis and to determine whether use of these drugs affects the risk of complications of diabetes including heart disease, stroke, and retinopathy,” Greene said in a statement.