Prescriptions of Antidepressants to Survivors of Cancer in Childhood, Adolescence, and Young Adulthood: A Population-Based Study

Purpose: Survivors of cancer may experience higher rates of psychological problems requiring pharmacological interventions than age-matched controls from the general population. This study compares prescription rates of antidepressants in survivors of cancer, diagnosed in childhood, adolescence, or early adulthood, to the rate in age-and gender-matched controls from the Norwegian population. Methods: Antidepressants prescribed to 5341 cancer survivors, diagnosed 25 years during 1965-2000, were studied in a population-based cohort by linking data from the following nationwide registries: the Population Registry of Norway, the Cancer Registry of Norway, and the Norwegian Prescription Database. For each survivor, three age-and gender-matched controls were randomly selected from the population. A Cox proportional hazard model was applied to estimate hazard ratios (HRs) of antidepressant prescriptions during 2004-2012 to the survivors with controls as referents. Results: Survivors had an increased risk of being prescribed antidepressants with crude rates of 26.9/1000 person-years compared with 22.5/1000 person-years in controls (HR 1.19; 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.12-1.28). The relative risk was highest for survivors of central nervous system tumors (HR 1.30; 95% CI 1.04-1.63), leukemias (HR 1.29; 95% CI 1.03-1.63), testicular tumors (HR 1.27; 95% CI 1.04-1.55), and other tumors (HR 1.42; 95% CI 1.10-1.84). No effect of age at cancer diagnosis was found. Conclusion: Certain groups of survivors of cancer in childhood, adolescence, or young adulthood have a slightly increased risk for being prescribed antidepressants than their peers. The results may indicate an increased prevalence of depression among these survivors, but diagnostic reasons for prescriptions need to be confirmed in clinical studies.