Purpose: Prescription drugs have, to our knowledge, not been much studied in epidemiological samples with long-term follow-up.  Accordingly, our purpose was to analyse the use of prescription drugs in adults with adolescent depression.

Methods: A Swedish population-based cohort of adolescents (n = 2465) was screened for the presence of depressive symptoms and diagnosed according to a structured interview.  A total of 362 individuals were identified as depressed and compared with 250 non-depressed controls.  The prescription drugs were evaluated at the age of 29-31 years from a register kept by the National Health and Welfare Board.

Results: Formerly depressed females received significantly more prescription drugs, such as antidepressants, antiepileptics, antibacterials, antimycotics and antihistamines for systemic use as well as other drugs, compared with controls (15.6 +/- 27.4 vs 8.2 +/- 7.4 prescriptions, p less than 0.001).  Formerly depressed males did not differ from controls regarding prescription drugs.

Conclusions: Females, but not males, with adolescent depression subsequently received more prescription drugs than non-depressed peers.  Depressed female adolescents received more psychotropic and non-psychotropic drugs later in life compared to the non-depressed.  This might be as a result of physical illnesses, different treatment-seeking behaviours or somatizing reactions.