This article is from the WebMD Medical News Archive

Oct. 14, 2003 -- It's costing more to treat mental illness in children, and a study suggests it's largely because of the popularity of a handful of newer, more expensive drugs.

Between 1997 and 2000, the overall use of medications to treat mental illness in children under age 17 increased about 5%, say Yale researchers. But in those three years, the actual dollars spent on drug treatments zoomed up 65%.

Most of the added cost of treating mental illness in children can be traced to increased prescribing of just seven medications, researchers say after analyzing pharmacy records of more than 83,000 young patients.

Nearly half of the $2.7 million increase in overall sales in those years was due to higher use of three types of drugs -- stimulants used to treat ADHD; Zoloft, to treat depression and anxiety disorders and Risperdal, used to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Four other drugs used for depression and anxiety made up the rest -- Wellbutrin, Paxil, Effexor, and Celexa.

All of these are newer psychotropic drugs, powerful medications that change brain chemistry and, in most cases, have not been specifically approved by the FDA to treat mental illness in children and teens. Still, this study -- published in the current issue of The Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine -- and other studies suggest that despite lacking this approval, they are widely prescribed to underage patients.

"The motivation for this study is to follow a previous study we did that documented there is a huge increase in psychotropic drug use among kids, which in itself is alarming," researcher Douglas Leslie, PhD, tells WebMD. "Why are we using all these powerful drugs to treat this especially vulnerable population? Our purpose was to determine what is driving this trend."

He and psychiatrist Andres Martin, MD, of Yale's Child Study Center, found several reasons.

There are more patients, in part because some drugs are increasingly being used to treat "off-label" uses. (Once a drug is on the market, doctors can prescribe it for any purpose if they think it would be helpful. Uses not specifically approved by the FDA are called off-label uses.)

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