Prescription and use of antidepressants in adolescents: a systematic review

Abstract

In the last two decades, the occurrence of depression has shown an increasing inclination among the adolescent population, drawing attention due to the fact that the characteristics of the disease manifest more severely in this population, resulting in a negative impact of the disease on their social, family, and school relationships. The most widespread treatment for depression among psychiatrists is the use of psychotropic drugs, which generally inhibit the reuptake of neurotransmitters or decrease their destruction, resulting in an increase of neurotransmitters in the synaptic cleft. However, when it comes to adolescents, the choice of psychotropic drugs should pay attention to the lower risk of causing side effects, as well as initiating treatment with low therapeutic doses, considering the individuality and fragility of each organism. In this sense, this article has the general objective of performing a systematic review of the literature on the use and prescription of antidepressants in adolescents from 10 to 19 years of age. The scientific articles were selected from the electronic databases PubMed, LILACS, and SciELO, with a time frame of 2011 to 2021, and in Portuguese. A detailed analysis of the scientific articles was performed, resulting in 6 articles for analysis.  According to the results obtained, it was concluded that the Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors is the class of antidepressants most commonly used in adolescents, especially because it is the latest generation, has fewer side effects, and has good adherence to treatment.