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Nearly 100,000 children, teenagers and young adults up to age 29 in Greece received at least one psychotropic medication over a single year, while the use of antidepressants has followed a clear upward trend, rising by 47%. The new figures add to an already troubling series of warnings about the mental health of younger generations, including high rates of self-harm and suicidal thoughts, as well as a significant incidence of suicide attempts as early as adolescence.

The new Greek study, published in August 2026 in the scientific journal Frontiers in Drug Safety and Regulation, provides the first large-scale picture of trends in the prescription of psychotropic medications to children, adolescents and young people, from infancy through age 29, in Greece between 2020 and 2024.

The study was conducted by Konstantinos Kassandros, Maria Samakouri, Maria Panagopoulou, Theodoros Konstantinidis and Christos Kontogiorgis of the Laboratory of Hygiene and Environmental Protection and the Department of Psychiatry at the Democritus University of Thrace Medical School. The researchers analyzed nationwide administrative data on the dispensing of electronic prescriptions through EOPYY, Greece’s National Organization for Healthcare Services Provision.

Psychotropic and antidepressant medications

The figures are revealing. In 2020, 81,201 people up to age 29 had at least one dispensed psychotropic medication recorded. Four years later, that number had risen to 98,269. The rate increased from 64.5 per 1,000 residents to 71.8 per 1,000.

The change was evident in both age groups. Among children and adolescents ages 0 to 17, the number of recipients rose from 7,142 in 2020 to 9,061 in 2024. Among young people ages 18 to 29, the increase was from 74,059 to 89,208.

The picture is even more striking for antidepressants. The dispensing rate for selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) rose from 6.65 per 1,000 people in 2020 to 9.09 per 1,000 in 2024, an increase of about 37%. The number of SSRI packages dispensed rose from 241,323 to 342,340, while the similar category of serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs) also increased sharply, by 65%, from 57,258 to 94,615 packages. Overall, the number of antidepressant packages dispensed rose from 342,600 in 2020 to more than 500,000 in 2024, an increase of 47%.

Notably, the increase does not appear to be mainly due to each patient receiving more medication. Rather, as noted above, it is attributed to the growing number of young people receiving psychotropic drugs.

Women were more likely to receive an antidepressant, while the geographic differences are also striking. For antidepressants, the Ionian Islands recorded the highest average annual rate, at 13.46 per 1,000 residents, followed by Attica, the region that includes Athens, at 11.93, and Western Greece at 11.86.

The researchers themselves, however, emphasize a crucial distinction: the data concern the dispensing of prescriptions, not confirmed consumption of the medications. Therefore, it is not known whether the drugs were actually taken or to what extent patients followed their prescribed treatment. Nor, of course, can the increase in prescriptions alone be interpreted as an equivalent increase in mental health disorders. It may also reflect greater recognition and treatment of problems that previously went undiagnosed.

The other troubling finding

There is, however, a second set of Greek data that makes the picture of young people’s mental health more complex. In a large study of 5,612 Greek adolescents ages 12 to 16, published in BMC Psychiatry in 2025, George Giannakopoulos, associate professor of Child Psychiatry at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA), and his colleagues recorded particularly high levels of psychological distress. The study was conducted among students at 51 schools in six regions of the country, with an average age of 13.4.

“More than 5,600 middle school students were included in the study, which is objectively a large sample, even if it is not considered fully representative,” Giannakopoulos said. No one, however, disputes the rates recorded in the study.

The study cannot determine whether there has been an increase or decrease over time in rates of self-harm or suicidal thoughts. That change over time is captured more clearly in a second Greek study, based on cases that arrived at the emergency department of “Agia Sofia” Children’s Hospital in Athens.

“We went through our records and searched from 2018 to 2024, meaning two years before, two years during and two years after the pandemic,” Giannakopoulos said. A total of 2,796 children and adolescents were examined.

“Before the pandemic, 12% of the children came because of suicidal behavior. During the pandemic, that 12% became 25%. It doubled. After the pandemic, it remained at 24%.”

Even more concerning, however, is the fact that the figure does not appear to be declining. “Empirically, we see it continuing. We are not seeing the expected decline as we move further away from the major disruption of the pandemic. We see it becoming somewhat entrenched,” he said.

The average age of the patients was around 14, while girls made up the overwhelming majority. According to the professor, the pandemic acted more as an “amplifier of an existing vulnerability,” through isolation, disruption of school and social routines, family pressures, uncertainty and more difficult access to services.

From relief to risk

It should be noted that self-harm does not always involve suicidal intent. Nadia Maglara, assistant professor of Psychiatry at NKUA, points out that “self-harm can function as a way of relieving intense psychological pressure or as behavior associated with identification with peers. For some children, however, it can become the first step toward a more dangerous path.”

“There is nonsuicidal self-harm, but there is also self-harm that may foreshadow suicidality, either in the form of thoughts, plans or an attempt,” she explains. The pathway can begin even earlier, with thoughts such as “life is not worth living” or with wishes for death.

The difficulty is that prediction remains extremely challenging. “Predictability is low in suicide. Someone may be assessed today, deny wanting to hurt themselves and make an attempt the following day.”

This makes continuity of care even more critical, particularly after discharge from hospital. Maglara emphasizes that the need for mental health services has increased far beyond available capacity. “In Greece, existing services are overloaded, with enormous waiting lists. Since the pandemic, there has been tremendous demand and low supply compared with what we need. There are not enough specialists.”