Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been concerns over the mental health impact of COVID-19. This is a review of the utilization of antidepressants, anxiolytics, and hypnotics since the COVID-19 pandemic was declared on March the 11th 2020. A number of reports so far have been based on large prescription databases for administrative use at the national or regional level, but mainly in high-income countries. We found studies reporting increased prescription rates of antidepressants, anxiolytics, and hypnotics during March 2020, which has been interpreted as hoarding of such medications. In the following months, most studies of antidepressant prescription rates did not display a clear pattern of change compared with prepandemic trends. In later phases of the pandemic small increases in utilization of antidepressants, with higher than predicted prescription rates, have been the most consistent finding, especially in youth. In most high-income countries, there were increasing trends in utilization of antidepressants also before 2020, which needs to be considered when estimating utilization during the pandemic, whereas for anxiolytics and hypnotics, the prepandemic patterns of prescriptions were more varying. Overall, after March 2020 we could not find any distinct changes in the utilization of anxiolytics and hypnotics during the COVID-19 pandemic. Most studies did not contain information about the prevalence of indicated psychiatric disorders in the studied populations. More studies are needed about the long-term effects of COVID-19, particularly regarding utilization of antidepressants. Research relating antidepressant utilization with the prevalence of major depression and anxiety disorders would promote a better understanding of how well antidepressant prescription rates reflect the needs of the population.

自 COVID-19 大流行爆发以来，人们一直担心 COVID-19 对心理健康的影响。这是自 2020 年 3 月 11 日宣布 COVID-19 大流行以来抗抑郁药、抗焦虑药和安眠药的使用情况的回顾。迄今为止的许多报告都是基于国家或地区一级行政使用的大型处方数据库，但主要是在高收入国家。我们发现研究报告称 2020 年 3 月期间抗抑郁药、抗焦虑药和安眠药的处方率有所增加，这被解释为囤积此类药物。在接下来的几个月中，大多数抗抑郁药处方率研究与大流行前的趋势相比并未显示出明显的变化模式。在大流行的后期阶段，抗抑郁药的使用小幅增加，处方率高于预期，这是最一致的发现，特别是在年轻人中。在大多数高收入国家，2020年之前抗抑郁药的使用量也呈增加趋势，在估计大流行期间的使用量时需要考虑这一点，而对于抗焦虑药和安眠药来说，大流行前的处方模式变化更大。总体而言，2020 年 3 月之后，我们在 COVID-19 大流行期间未发现抗焦虑药和安眠药的使用发生任何明显变化。大多数研究不包含有关研究人群中指定精神疾病患病率的信息。需要对 COVID-19 的长期影响进行更多研究，特别是关于抗抑郁药物的使用。将抗抑郁药的使用与重度抑郁症和焦虑症的患病率联系起来的研究将有助于更好地了解抗抑郁药处方率如何反映人群的需求。