It has been just over four years since the declaration of the state of emergency due to the covid pandemic, the origin of the confinement, catalyst of the increase in mental health problems among children and adolescents, according to the specialists. The number of under-18s taking psychotropic drugs in Catalonia grew from 10,000 in 2019 to 12,000 in 2021 and to 21,000 the following year. These are data from Joan Vegué, responsible for the Generalitat’s master plan for mental health and addictions. A number of factors affect the psychological discomfort of Generation Z, those born after 2000. “If we don’t help them to be competent, in the future we will have many depressed and many anxious people”, warns psychiatrist Josep Moya.
Health services are overcrowded, appointments can take time if it is not extremely serious cases and pills appear as an easy formula to treat the discomforts of everyday life. Is the child and youth population excessively medicated? “In this segment, the frustration of not meeting expectations now generates situations of discomfort, and sometimes of frank psychopathology, when we understand that the person should be able to cope”, introduces Vegué, who makes it clear that there is a way for the psychotherapy to the detriment of the use of drugs.
According to this specialist, the administration of psychotropic drugs to minors does not exceed the levels of countries around us. In 2022, child and youth mental health centers in Catalonia treated nearly 84,000 people, of whom 25% take psychotropic drugs. “It is not a negligible percentage”, says Vegué. “These medications have their interest in affective disorders or ADHD, but in general the commitment of the mental health master plan is to gradually strengthen all psychological and psychotherapeutic care so that we do not medicate what is not strictly necessary”. In this framework, Salut is working on obtaining data on the duration of treatments with anxiolytics and antidepressants in case excesses are detected. A therapy requires between 4 and 6 months.
Moya, president of the organizing committee of the VIII Catalan Congress of Mental Health for Children and Adolescents, held last month, observes a tendency to elevate symptoms such as anxiety or sadness to the category of disorder. “If we focus on the problems of emotional or mental health disorders solely from a pharmacological perspective, but do not help the population to acquire mental resources to deal with complex and adverse situations, we will have a series of citizens unable to cope with difficulties inherent in everyday life”, he predicts.
This psychiatrist advocates that young people must train themselves in the family, educational and social spheres to deal with life’s difficulties. “A strictly biological approach leads us to have more citizens with mental problems in the future. The problem is one of prevailing discourse, and the prevailing discourse is to treat ailments with pills. It’s the easiest”, he argues.
Iris Pérez-Bonaventura, PhD in Child Psychology and author of Ansiedad: a mí también me pasa (B de Blok), wants to declare herself optimistic about the future of generation Z. It is best not to comment on the level of medicalization and see the situation as a challenge: “The numbers are very high, but there are more and more programs to prevent and intervene in young people’s mental health problems, which are not definitive. If you have anxiety or depression now, it doesn’t mean you have to have it for the rest of your life. If you find the intervention that works for you, you can go ahead.”
The crisis had given signs, but it skyrocketed with the changes in life (lack of outdoor activity, more use of screens) of the pandemic, experts agree. The ball, they claim, has grown faster than the resources, and the solutions are multiple and complex. “We must be able to do prevention by working with different departments: Education, Social Rights and Health”, says Vegué. Meanwhile, the straightest path, for the system and for many patients, leads to drugs. “The other day an adult person said to me: ‘Prescribe me something but don’t make me think'”, reports a psychiatrist.
