In a recent article published in JAMA Network Open, researchers conducted a cohort study in the UK (UK) amongst men aged 15 to 55 to find out whether recent fatherhood was related to an increased inclination to hunt antidepressant treatment.

They considered antidepressant drugs, reminiscent of serotonin reuptake inhibitors, monoamine oxidase inhibitors, and mirtazapine, to call a couple of.

Study: Association of Recent Fatherhood With Antidepressant Treatment Initiation Amongst Men in the UK. Image Credit: GroundPicture/Shutterstock.com

Background

Studies have shown that just about one in 10 men experience depression immediately after childbirth, likely attributable to changes of their emotional state and social and relationship roles.

In the primary 12 months after childbirth, i.e., the postnatal period, some men may additionally need to manage additional work and financial stress. Studies have also shown an association between paternal and maternal mental health post-birth of a toddler.

While it’s well-established that men experience depression throughout the postnatal period, it’s less clear whether or not they need antidepressant therapies immediately after childbirth than at every other time of their lifespan.

In regards to the study

In the current study, researchers used primary care electronic health records (EHRs) from the IQVIA Medical Research Database (IMRD), which, as of December 2016, covered 16 million registered patients from 730 practices across the UK.

Within the UK, general practitioners (GPs) are the primary point of contact (POC) for all people facing mental health issues.

Upon diagnosis, GPs also initiate antidepressant treatment. During consultations, they gather patient-level information, including their demographics, lifestyle, diseases, etc., which they save in IMRD.

IMRD is broadly representative of the UK population but overrepresents more affluent people. It categorizes prescribing information per the British National Formulary (BNF) classification and captures the socioeconomic information via the Townsend rating, a measure of fabric deprivation.

Using a household identification number from the IMRD, the researchers identified men who fathered a toddler between January 1, 2007, and December 31, 2016. Additionally they chosen as much as five men (for every father) who didn’t father a toddler in the identical 12 months but matched on GP practice and age to attract comparisons.

These men met the identical data quality criteria as fathers during recruitment on this study; as an illustration, they provided complete social deprivation information.

The team followed up with all men for 12 months after their index date in the event that they received an antidepressant prescription. They followed up with all participants vulnerable to exposure from the index date to their first antidepressant drug prescription or the top of 1 12 months.

The researchers stratified study evaluation by the history of antidepressant treatment, paternal age, Townsend rating, and two-year calendar bands.

A random-effects Poisson regression model helped the researchers determine associations between fur patient characteristics and having an antidepressant prescription in the primary 12 months after the index date in fathers only.

They estimated and presented the time to the primary prescription because the median variety of days. The estimates derived using three study models, unadjusted, adjusted, and fully adjusted models, were presented as prevalence risk rates (PPRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs).

The team conducted the study analyses between January 2022 and March 2023 and repeated them after covering the comparison and study cohorts as variables.

Results

The authors identified 90,736 fathers between January 1, 2007, and December 31, 2016, and the comparison cohort comprised 453,632 men who didn’t father a toddler within the index 12 months.

Most men within the study cohort were aged 25 to 44 years, and most lived in minor socially-deprived areas, i.e., around 130,277, while 72,268 men lived in essentially the most deprived areas.

The study cohort was less prone to have a recent antidepressant treatment history than the comparison cohort (3,840 vs. 26,109); thus, less prone to have received previous treatment (1,206 vs. 7,516).

Overall, 5.5% of fathers and seven.5% of men within the comparison group had some history of antidepressant treatment. Indeed, previous antidepressant treatment and social deprivation were key determinants related to antidepressant treatment in the primary 12 months after having a toddler.

The IMRD database had more individuals between 2007 and 2008; thus, most men on this study cohort were from these years.

The daddy cohort had a lower proportion of men with any past treatment than men within the comparison cohort (5.5% vs. 7.5%), and accounting for this difference nullified all differences in antidepressant prescriptions of each cohorts throughout the follow-up.

Contrary to what researchers hypothesized, men who recently fathered a toddler were 17% less prone to be prescribed antidepressants than men within the comparison cohort. Nonetheless, increasing material deprivation increased the likelihood of receiving an antidepressant prescription in fathers.

Even after accounting for all contributing aspects, a history of antidepressant treatment remained strongly correlated to receiving an antidepressant treatment prescription after having a toddler.

On this study, only 4.9% of fathers had an antidepressant prescription in the primary 12 months after having a toddler.

Nonetheless, since this study included only those men who engaged with primary care services, they likely represented a subset of all men experiencing depression. In the longer term, survey studies should investigate all men experiencing depression.

Conclusions

In response to the authors, that is one among the primary studies to judge antidepressant treatments in a big cohort of men who recently became fathers and an equally sizeable comparative cohort of men, and data for each was retrieved using the identical source and methods.

The study results suggested that it’s crucial to grasp the effect of previous and up to date antidepressant treatment and financial and social deprivation to discover men potentially requiring different antidepressant therapy after having a toddler.

It is usually likely that men treated with an antidepressant were less prone to turn into fathers. Nonetheless, more research is warranted to find out whether antidepressant treatment could hamper men from becoming fathers.

Nonetheless, the study highlighted that in search of mental health treatments are still considered a stigma by men, especially when the main focus is on the health of the newborn and mother. T

hus, there’s a necessity to advertise mental health check-ups amongst men who recently became fathers, live in additional deprived areas, and have a history of antidepressant treatment. Future studies could further explore the advantages of such interventions.