Outpatient utilization of antidepressants: a prescription database analysis.

A prescription database analysis was conducted to describe the users of antidepressants outside hospitals in the Odense area (207,000 inhabitants) during one year. In total, 1.62% (N = 3360) of the population used antidepressants. Women and users aged over 70 years constituted a disproportionately large part. Seventy-five percent of the patients used tricyclic antidepressants. The estimated daily doses for the tricyclic antidepressants were generally low, the third quartile being less than 100 mg daily. The low doses may be due to antidepressants being used on other indications than depression or that a considerable number of the patients are not given a sufficient dose.