Trends in psychotropic medication across occupation types before and during the Covid-19 pandemic: a linked administrative data study

PURPOSE: Using linked administrative data, this study provides the first longitudinal analysis of mental health among workers across occupational groups prior to and during the Covid-19 pandemic. Eleven years of data were analysed to examine whether the pandemic period coincided with changes in psychotropic medication for workers across broad occupational groupings. METHODS: Data from Northern Ireland (NI) Enhanced Prescribing Database (EPD) was linked with NI Longitudinal Study (NILS) to examine trends in anti-depressants, anxiolytics and hypnotics (2011-2021) among NI workers (N = 200,004) across nine major occupation groups. Quarterly prescriptions were examined prior to and during pandemic restrictions (Q1-2011 to Q4-2019; and Q1-2020 to Q4-2021, respectively). Auto-regressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) models were trained to compare 'forecasted' and 'observed' rates…