Depression Risk May Rise During First Two Years of Oral Contraceptive Use

The first two years of oral contraceptive use may raise the risk of depression in women and adolescents compared with their peers who have never used oral contraceptives, astudy inEpidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences has found.Åsa Johansson, Ph.D., of Uppsala University in Sweden and colleagues analyzed data from 264,557 women from the UK Biobank, a population-based cohort that recruited participants aged 37 to 71 years from across the United Kingdom between 2006 and 2010. Among the women in the current study, 80.6% had used oral contraceptives. The median time from first initiation to last use of oral contraceptives was 10 years, and the median age at initiating and discontinuing use was 21 and 32 years, respectively. The incidence of depression was determined via interviews, inpatient hospital data, or primary ca re data.Women who used oral contraceptives had a 79% increased risk of depression during their first two years of oral contraceptive use compared with their peers who had never used oral contraceptives. Adolescents —those who began using oral contraceptives at or before the age of 20 years—had a 95% increased risk of depression during their first two years of oral contraceptive use compared with their peers who had never used oral contraceptives. The increased risk of depression associated with oral contra ceptive use declined over time, and the lifetime risk of depression was only 5% higher in women who had ever used oral contraceptives compared with those w...
Source: Psychiatr News - Category: Psychiatry Tags: birth control depression depressive symptoms Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences oral contraceptives UK Biobank Source Type: research