Study: Brexit anxiety led to spike in U.K. anti-depressant prescriptions

Nov. 21 (UPI) -- Anti-depressant prescriptions among Brits spiked after Great Britain voted to break from the European Union in 2016, a new study said.

Experts say this could have stemmed from uncertainty over Britain's future.

To figure out if Brexit caused the rise, researchers from King's College London and Harvard University analyzed prescriptions data in England, from every July between 2011 and 2016, for 326 voting areas. They compared prescriptions for antidepressant drugs with prescriptions for medications not associated with treating depression.

While prescriptions for both types of drugs ticked up pre-Brexit, prescriptions for antidepressants shot up after the departure by more than 13 percent.

"All this uncertainty is going to cause people stress and anxiety and worry, and some people might end up feeling more depressed due to this," Sotiris Vandoros, senior lecturer in health economics at King's Business School and lead author on the study, told CNN.

"This study adds to previous studies that show that events at the national level can have an effect on people's mental health or mood," Vandoros said.

Another study from Vandoros points to more national austerity-related angst.

The Brexit referendum lead to Britain breaking from the rest of the European Union, a move some thought might spell economic doom for the nation.

"All this uncertainty is going to cause people stress and anxiety and worry, and some people might end up feeling more depressed due to this," Vandoros told CNN.

Adding to that, a United Nations report from last week says that the bootstrapping of U.K.'s austerity has helped push 14 million, or one-fifth of the population, into poverty.

Vandoros said people without a financial or emotional safety net usually suffer the most from this type of uncertainty.

The British website Money and Mental Health says that about 25 percent with money problems also have debt.

Following the 2016 referendum in which 30 million Brits voted, the Mental Health Foundation wrote on its website, "Many of those who voted Leave are likely to be experiencing different but no less acute levels of upheaval. There will likely be a sense of dissonance at getting the outcome they wanted and yet stung by the disappointment or resentment expressed by friends and family who took a different view."

Kamaldeep S. Bhui, professor of cultural psychiatry and epidemiology at Queen Mary University of London, added that while the Vandoros study is "not a perfect method," he said that it is an important sign that "politicians need to be more careful about decision-making, as it can affect health."