Frequency of Follow-up Care for Adult & Pediatric Patients During Initiation of Antidepressant Therapy

This retrospective study included 84,500 adult and pediatric patients who started on a new course of antidepressant therapy between July 2001, and September 2003. The researchers used an integrated database of medical and pharmacy claims to determine the number of health provider visits by reviewing medical claim information for these patients. The patients all had mental health care coverage as participants in medical and pharmacy benefit plans administered by a large managed care organization in the northeastern United States.

While fewer than half of children 18 years and younger saw a practitioner at least once for mental health care follow-up in the first few months of antidepressant treatment, adult visits were even less frequent:

• 66% of children and 83% of adults did not see a clinician for a mental health care visit in the first four weeks after antidepressant therapy had begun
   
• 58% of children and 78% of adults had not had such a visit within eight weeks
   
• 53% of children and nearly 76% of adult patients had no mental health care visits during the first twelve weeks of drug therapy