Ha this terrible feeling when the eyelids are heavy but we can not sleep, bedridden in insomnia for no reason, with the brain that runs on high speed V and that analyzes our whole life (yes it happened to us recently , Is it showing that much ?). Consumption of sleeping pills and tranquilizers increased in France at the end of confinement and just after its lifting, which is probably linked to "anxiety" caused by the Covid-19 epidemic, according to an official report published on Friday .
Among the fifty classes of drugs studied, hypnotics (commonly called sleeping pills) are those whose consumption increased the most during the first week after the lifting of containment on May 11 (+ 6.9% compared to the expected level, estimated on the basis of the same period in 2018 and 2019).
Antidepressants have not increased
This increase amounted to + 8%, + 8% and + 5% during the last three weeks of confinement. Same observation, but to a lesser degree, for anxiolytics (tranquilizers), with + 1.2% just after confinement. "As several surveys point out, confinement and its social, professional and economic consequences could have caused sleep disorders and anxiety," point out the authors of the report, published by the Agence du Médicament (ANSM) and the Health Insurance.
On the other hand, this increase just after confinement did not concern antidepressants. Another lesson from this report is the "sharp drop" in the start of treatment for new patients in several diseases (-39% for antihypertensive drugs, -48.5% for antidiabetics and -49% for statins).
General medicine in decline
"These decreases corresponded to more than 100,000 hypertensive patients, 37,500 diabetics and 70,000 people undergoing treatment with statins," according to the report. "These observations corroborate the deficit in diagnoses of infarction and stroke during confinement, but also the very strong decrease in general medicine activity outside Covid-19 and this despite the development of teleconsultations", underline the authors.
Another consequence of confinement is the "very large decrease in the supply of products requiring administration by a health professional". It had already been noted in the previous part of the report, on May 4. This report, the third since the beginning of the epidemic, is produced by Epi-flagship, a structure bringing together ANSM and Health Insurance.
It is based on prescription dispensing figures in pharmacies for drugs reimbursed by the social security system, during the eight weeks of confinement and the first week post-confinement. This represents 725 million prescriptions.
Health
The undesirable effects of sleeping pills pointed out by "60 million consumers"
Health
"Since deconfinement, I have become allergic to noise" ... The return of noise nuisance drives them crazy
- Society
- Confinement
- Coronavirus
- Sleep
- Night