Descriptive time series data analysis using R and tidyverse

Antidepressants utilization trends in Swedish women

In this post, I will be looking at the utilization rates of antidepressants by the age categories in Swedish women. All the code used for the plots in this post can be found here.

Photo by Nastya Dulhiier on Unsplash

Overall antidepressants utilization

• Antidepressants utilization was increasing for women over time
• In 2019, the highest rate of overall antidepressant utilization was among women between 80 and 84 years (252 per 1000 women in the population of the same age group)

Antidepressants utilization by medication class

Non-selective monoamine reuptake inhibitors

• In 2019, utilization of non-selective monoamine reuptake inhibitors (apart from amitriptyline) was low with the rate of 1 or fewer women per 1000
• In 2019, utilization of amitriptyline was 33 women per 1000 women for age group 80–84 years and 2–10 women per 1000 women for age groups between 15 and 34 years

To have a better understanding of the utilization of each of the drugs within each antidepressant class available in Sweden, I plotted utilization for distinct ATC codes between 2006 and 2019 by age groups in 4-year bands.

Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors

• In 2019, the highest utilization rates were observed for citaprolam (59 per 1000 women) and for sertraline (51 per 1000 women)
• Utilization of fluoxetine was increasing over time among girls and young women aged between 15 and 19 years, and the highest utilization rate was observed in 2019 (24 per 1000 women)
• Utilization of escitalopram was increasing over time for all age groups; in 2019 the highest utilization was observed for women between 35 and 44 years (32 per 1000 women)

Monoamine oxidase A inhibitors

• The rate of moclobemide utilization was low (< 1 per 1000 women) for all age groups

Non-selective monoamine oxidase inhibitors

• The utilization rate was very low for women of all investigated age groups

Other antidepressants utilization

• In 2019, the mirtazapine utilization rate was 112 per 1000 women in the age group 80–84 years; the utilization rate was increasing over time for the older age groups
• In 2019, bupropion utilization was ~10 per 1000 women in each of the age groups 35–39 years, 40–44 years, 45–49 years
• The utilization rate of duloxetine was increasing over time and in 2019 was the highest for women in the age group 55–59 years (15 women per 1000)

Major data caveats

• The data do not include medicines that are sold without a prescription
• No data on indication

Thanks for tuning in!

References

1. Data source: https://www.socialstyrelsen.se/