13 mars 2023
According to the High Council for the Family, Childhood and Age (HCFEA), many children and adolescents are in a situation of psychological suffering. And according to a report made public on March 13, more and more are placed on psychotropic drugs!
Stress, harassment, family difficulties… According to the national consultation of 6-18 year olds conducted by Unicef France among more than 25,000 children in France, 76.6% of them indicate that they sometimes to be sad or gloomy, 53.3% to have no taste for anything and 64.2% to lose self-confidence.
A pain to take care of. And if we compare the data for 2010 with those for 2021, the continuous increase in the consumption of psychotropic drugs in the pediatric population is undeniable: it has doubled. The data for 2021 indeed suggests that the consumption of psychotropic drugs could affect more than 5% of the pediatric population.
Not suitable for children’s brains
So, as explained The Parisian which relays a report from the High Council for the Family, Childhood and Age (HCFEA), ” consumption rates among those under 20 increased, between 2014 and 2021, by 48.54% for antipsychotics, 62.58% for antidepressants, 78.07% for psychostimulants and even 155.48 % for hypnotics and sedatives. »
« The increase in the consumption of psychotropic drugs in the pediatric population does not affect isolated cases but indeed hundreds of thousands of deliveries and tens of thousands of children. », warns the HCFEA.
Problem, 50 to 90% of psychotropic drugs used in pediatrics are neither studied nor evaluated in children. Thus, the prescription of off-label psychotropic drugs in children would be around 40% in general practice and more than 67% in hospitals!
Figures that require ” make the mental health of children and adolescents a priority and an emergency of health policies, as recommended by the WHO “, maintains Sylviane Giampino, president of the HCFEA, with the Parisian. And therefore to rethink the psychological care of the youngest.
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Source : When children are bad: how to help them? – Report of the High Council for the Family, Childhood and Age – Le Parisien
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Written by : Vincent Roche – Edited by: Emmanuel Ducreuzet
