Long-term antidepressant use surges in Australia, sparking warnings of overprescribing

University of South Australia

FacebookXLinkedInWeChatBlueskyMessageWhatsAppEmail

Long-term antidepressant use in Australia has risen steadily over the past decade, with the largest increase seen in young people aged 10-24, where rates have more than doubled.

The finding is from a new study undertaken by University of South Australia researchers, who analysed dispensing data from the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) covering more than 300,000 antidepressant users between 2014 and 2023.

The most comprehensive study of its kind, published in the Pharmacaoepidemiology and Drug Safety Journal, reveals that 45% of young people on antidepressants are staying on them for more than 12 months, and a substantial number are still using them after two years.

Long-term use – defined as taking antidepressants continuously for more than 12 months – has risen markedly across all age groups, although the most dramatic increase is occurring in young Australians.

Lead author, UniSA researcher Dr Lasantha Ranwala, says the findings highlight a critical shift in how antidepressants are being used in Australia, raising concerns over potential overprescribing and inconsistency with guidelines that recommend a careful review of medication use after 6-12 months.

“Not only are more people taking antidepressants, but once they start, they are staying on them for longer,” Dr Ranwala says.

The medical practitioner, AI researcher and UniSA PhD candidate says this is especially concerning for younger age groups, where clinical guidelines generally recommend psychological therapies as the first line of treatment.

Across the whole population, long-term antidepressant use increased from 66 to nearly 85 users per 1000 people between 2014 and 2022, before stabilising slightly in 2023. Women continued to record significantly higher use than men throughout the study period.

“While antidepressants play a role in managing moderate to severe depression, prolonged use can increase the risk of side effects and make withdrawal more difficult,” Dr Ranwala says.

“Withdrawal symptoms are often misinterpreted as a return of the underlying condition, which can further extend treatment, exacerbating the problem.”

The researchers also found no meaningful improvement in efforts to wean people off antidepressants.

The proportion of long-term users who were put on a lower dose remained constant over the decade – 17.9% in 2014 compared with 17.8% in 2023.

“This lack of movement suggests that deprescribing strategies are not being routinely implemented in clinical practice,” according to co-author, UniSA Professor Libby Roughead, Director of the Quality Use of Medicines and Pharmacy Research Centre.

“Given the increase in long-term use, especially among young people, this is an area that requires urgent attention,” says Prof Roughead.

Researchers point to several drivers behind this trend, including a spike in mental health issues among young people, rising rates of psychological distress generally, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and difficulties accessing psychological therapies.

With mental health demands at an all-time high, the authors argue for a more balanced approach that ensures antidepressants are used appropriately and that patients receive adequate support to reduce or discontinue treatment when the clinical need has passed.

“Australia needs a stronger framework for safely tapering antidepressants, along with better access to psychological care,” says Prof Roughead.

UniSA co-author, Associate Professor Andrew Andrade, says emerging technologies including predictive analytics and clinical decision-support tools may also help clinicians identify when deprescribing is appropriate.

“Clinicians need stronger support systems to safely deprescribe antidepressants,” Assoc Prof Andrade says.

“Smart technologies can help identify patients who are good candidates for tapering, coordinate timely access to non-pharmacological treatments, and provide clear, step-by-step guidance to clinicians and patients throughout the slow dose-reduction process.”

The study, ‘Increasing Prevalence or Long-Term Antidepressant Use in Australia,’ is published in Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety. DOI: 10.1002/pds.70267

---

Journal

Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety

DOI

10.1002/pds.70267 

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Increasing Prevalence or Long-Term Antidepressant Use in Australia

 

Evidence lacking for medical cannabis in most conditions

Review finds limited support for cannabis as a medical treatment, except for certain conditions such as pediatric seizures and chemotherapy side effects

University of California - Los Angeles Health Sciences

FacebookXLinkedInWeChatBlueskyMessageWhatsAppEmail

Medical cannabis lacks adequate scientific backing for most of the conditions it is commonly used to treat, including chronic pain, anxiety and insomnia, according to a comprehensive review led by UCLA Health.

The paper, published in JAMA, reviewed more than 2,500 articles published from January 2010 through September 2025 including randomized clinical trials, meta-analyses and clinical guidelines. More than 120 studies were prioritized based on their large samples, recency, topics covered and relevancy. The findings come as medical uses for cannabis and cannabinoids such as CBD have grown in popularity, with 27% of people in the U.S. and Canada having reported using it for various purposes such as pain relief, anxiety and sleep problems, according to a 2018 survey.

The review’s first author Dr. Michael Hsu of UCLA Health said there is a gap in understanding between the public and the most recent scientific evidence on its purported medical benefits.

“While many people turn to cannabis seeking relief, our review highlights significant gaps between public perception and scientific evidence regarding its effectiveness for most medical conditions” said Hsu, health sciences clinical assistant professor at the UCLA Health Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences. “Clear guidance from clinicians is essential to support safe, evidence-based decision-making when discussing medical cannabis with their patients.”

The review confirmed that pharmaceutical-grade cannabinoids approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration have demonstrated effectiveness but only in a narrow range of conditions. These include medications for HIV/AIDS-related appetite loss, chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting and certain severe pediatric seizure disorders such as Dravet syndrome and Lennox-Gastaut syndrome.

For most other conditions, the evidence remains either inconclusive or lacking, the review found. While more than half of people who use medical cannabis report using it for chronic pain, current clinical guidelines recommend against cannabis-based medicines as first-line treatment for chronic pain.

The review also highlighted potential health risks associated with cannabis use. Longitudinal data from adolescents indicated that high-potency cannabis may be linked to increased rates of psychotic symptoms (12.4% versus 7.1% for low-potency) and generalized anxiety disorder (19.1% versus 11.6%).

About 29% of people who use medical cannabis also met criteria for cannabis use disorder. Daily use of cannabis, particularly use of inhaled and/or high-potency products, may be associated with cardiovascular risks, including higher rates of coronary heart disease, heart attack and stroke compared to non-daily use.

The review emphasizes that clinicians should carefully screen patients for cardiovascular disease and psychotic disorders, evaluate potential drug interactions and assess whether the risks outweigh the benefits before considering THC-containing products for medical purposes.

“Patients deserve honest conversations about what the science does and doesn't tell us about medical cannabis,” Hsu said.

The authors noted several limitations of the review. The paper was not a systemic review, and it did not conduct a formal risk of bias assessment of the included studies. Several studies in the review were observational and may be subject to confounding. Additionally, recommendations from clinical trials may not apply to all patients due to variations in their design, patient characteristics and cannabis products tested.

“Further research is crucial to better understand the potential benefits and risks of medical cannabis. By supporting more rigorous studies, we can provide clearer guidance and improve clinical care for patients,” said Dr. Hsu.

Researchers from Harvard, UC San Francisco, Washington University School of Medicine, and New York University contributed to the study.

---

Method of Research

Literature review

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Therapeutic Use of Cannabis and Cannabinoids: A Review

Article Publication Date

26-Nov-2025

COI Statement

Dr Hsu reported serving on the scientific advisory board for Healthy Gamer LLC, a content creation and mental health coaching platform for the internet generation. Dr Jordan reported receiving grants from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, National Institute on Drug Abuse, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services, and National Cancer Institute outside the submitted work. Dr Hill reported receiving grants from the Massachusetts Bureau of Substance Abuse Services and royalties from Hazelden Publishing and Wolters Kluwer outside the submitted work. No other disclosures were reported.

 

To bop or to sway? The music will tell you

Specific musical features have the power to make people bounce or sway.

Acoustical Society of America

FacebookXLinkedInWeChatBlueskyMessageWhatsAppEmail

 

image: 

The music samples being composed.

view more 

Credit: Shimpei Ikegami

HONOLULU, Dec. 2, 2025 — Some music is for grooving: It evokes spontaneous dancing, like head bopping, jumping, or arm swinging. Other music is for swaying, or for crying, or for slow dancing. Music makes people move, but whether musicians intentionally induce specific movements with their compositions, such as vertical bouncing or horizontal swaying, or what musical features would contribute to these distinctions, is more complex.

Shimpei Ikegami, an associate professor at Showa Women’s University, sought to understand how musicians express intended bodily movement directions using specific acoustic features.

“It’s almost magical how something we hear with our ears can influence our entire body. In Japan, we even have terms to describe distinct rhythmic feelings to music,” Ikegami said.

Ikegami will present his musical results Tuesday, Dec. 2, at 2:55 p.m. HST as part of the Sixth Joint Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America and Acoustical Society of Japan, running Dec. 1-5 in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Four professional pop musicians composed short musical excerpts intended to elicit either “tate-nori” (vertical, up-and-down movement), “yoko-nori” (horizontal, side-to-side movement), or neither movement type.

Ikegami quantified the acoustic characteristics of the excerpts, measuring features such as loudness, beat clarity, rhythm complexity, and timbre. By comparing the prominence of features across intended-movement conditions, he found that vertical “bop” music was characterized by a clearer beat and percussive sounds, fueling listeners with the rush of high-energy workout songs. In contrast, horizontal “sway” excerpts were smoother and included less percussive sounds, creating a mellow and atmospheric musical impression. In a listener-rating experiment, participants heard each excerpt and rated the extent to which it made them feel like moving vertically and horizontally. Ikegami found that the listeners’ directional dancing inclinations matched the musicians’ intended expressions.

Ikegami’s findings suggest that the way musicians express certain qualities of danceability is specific and quantifiable. He aims to further explore commonalities and differences between musical profiles that induce vertical versus horizontal bodily movement.

“In the immediate future, I am investigating the psychological impressions — how the music is perceived by listeners. I am also deeply interested in cultural differences in these phenomena,” said Ikegami. “I believe that advancing my understanding of how music influences our body movements could be beneficial in fields such as health care, rehabilitation, and education.”

###

Main Meeting Website: https://acousticalsociety.org/honolulu-2025/

Technical Program: https://eppro02.ativ.me/web/planner.php?id=ASAASJ25

ASA PRESS ROOM

In the coming weeks, ASA’s Press Room will be updated with newsworthy stories and the press conference schedule at https://acoustics.org/asa-press-room/.

LAY LANGUAGE PAPERS

ASA will also share dozens of lay language papers about topics covered at the conference. Lay language papers are summaries (300-500 words) of presentations written by scientists for a general audience. They will be accompanied by photos, audio, and video. Learn more at https://acoustics.org/lay-language-papers/.

PRESS REGISTRATION

ASA will grant free registration to credentialed and professional freelance journalists. If you are a reporter and would like to attend the meeting and/or press conferences, contact AIP Media Services at media@aip.org. For urgent requests, AIP staff can also help with setting up interviews and obtaining images, sound clips, or background information.

ABOUT THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA

The Acoustical Society of America is the premier international scientific society in acoustics devoted to the science and technology of sound. Its 7,000 members worldwide represent a broad spectrum of the study of acoustics. ASA publications include The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (the world’s leading journal on acoustics), JASA Express Letters, Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics, Acoustics Today magazine, books, and standards on acoustics. The society also holds two major scientific meetings each year. See https://acousticalsociety.org/.

ABOUT THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF JAPAN

ASJ publishes a monthly journal in Japanese, the Journal of the Acoustical Society of Japan, as well as a bimonthly journal in English, Acoustical Science and Technology, which is available online at no cost https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/browse/ast. These journals include technical papers and review papers. Special issues are occasionally organized and published. The Society also publishes textbooks and reference books to promote acoustics associated with various topics. See https://acoustics.jp/en/.

###

Neural network helps detect gunshots from illegal rainforest poaching

Proposed model filters and verifies signals among a network of microphones to reduce false positives for gunshot detectors

Acoustical Society of America

FacebookXLinkedInWeChatBlueskyMessageWhatsAppEmail

 

image: 

A photo of a male forest elephant captured near the site where some of the gunshot recordings were taken. 

view more 

Credit: Anahita Verahrami, Elephant Listening Project

HONOLULU, Dec. 2, 2025 — Wildlife poaching remains a major conservation concern. Technological advancements have enabled webs of acoustic sensors to be deployed throughout rainforests, creating the possibility of real-time alerts to the sounds of gun-based poaching.

But the belly of the rainforest is loud, and sorting through a constant influx of sound data is computationally demanding. Detectors can distinguish a loud bang from the whistles, chirps, and rasps of birds and bugs. However, they often conflate the sounds of branches cracking, trees falling, or water dripping with gunshot noises, resulting in a high percentage of false positives for gunshot detectors.

Naveen Dhar, along with collaborators from Cornell University’s K. Lisa Yang Center for Conservation Bioacoustics and Elephant Listening Project, aimed to develop a lightweight gunshot detection neural network that can accompany sensors and process signals in real-time to minimize false positives.

Dhar will present his model Tuesday, Dec. 2, at 3 p.m. HST as part of the Sixth Joint Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America and Acoustical Society of Japan, running Dec. 1-5 in Honolulu, Hawaii.

The model works with autonomous recording units (ARUs), which are power-efficient microphones that capture continuous, long-term soundscapes. The proposed system utilizes a web of ARUs deployed across the forest, each performing real-time detection, with a central hub that handles more complex processing.

An initial scan filters all audio for “gunshot likely” signals and sends them to the ARU’s microprocessor, where the lightweight gunshot detection model lives. If confirmed as a gunshot by the microprocessor, the ARU passes the information to the central hub, initiating data collection from other devices in the web.

By determining if other sensors also hear a “gunshot likely” noise, the central hub then decides whether the event was a true gunshot or a potential false positive. If it determines a true positive, the central hub collates audio files from each sensor, allowing it to pinpoint the location of the gunshot and alert rangers with coordinates for immediate poaching intervention.

“Down the road, the device can be used as a tool for rangers and conservation managers, providing accurate and verifiable alerts for on-the-ground intervention along with low-latency data on the spatiotemporal trends of poachers,” said Dhar.

He plans to expand the model to detect the type of gun that fires each gunshot and other anthropogenic activities, such as chainsaws or trucks, before field-testing the system, which is currently under development.

“I hope the device can coalesce with Internet of Things infrastructure innovations and cost reduction of materials to produce a low-cost, open-source framework for real-time detection usable in any part of the globe,” said Dhar.

###

Main Meeting Website: https://acousticalsociety.org/honolulu-2025/

Technical Program: https://eppro02.ativ.me/web/planner.php?id=ASAASJ25

ASA PRESS ROOM

In the coming weeks, ASA’s Press Room will be updated with newsworthy stories and the press conference schedule at https://acoustics.org/asa-press-room/.

LAY LANGUAGE PAPERS

ASA will also share dozens of lay language papers about topics covered at the conference. Lay language papers are summaries (300-500 words) of presentations written by scientists for a general audience. They will be accompanied by photos, audio, and video. Learn more at https://acoustics.org/lay-language-papers/.

PRESS REGISTRATION

ASA will grant free registration to credentialed and professional freelance journalists. If you are a reporter and would like to attend the meeting and/or press conferences, contact AIP Media Services at media@aip.org. For urgent requests, AIP staff can also help with setting up interviews and obtaining images, sound clips, or background information.

ABOUT THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA

The Acoustical Society of America is the premier international scientific society in acoustics devoted to the science and technology of sound. Its 7,000 members worldwide represent a broad spectrum of the study of acoustics. ASA publications include The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (the world’s leading journal on acoustics), JASA Express Letters, Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics, Acoustics Today magazine, books, and standards on acoustics. The society also holds two major scientific meetings each year. See https://acousticalsociety.org/.

ABOUT THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF JAPAN

ASJ publishes a monthly journal in Japanese, the Journal of the Acoustical Society of Japan, as well as a bimonthly journal in English, Acoustical Science and Technology, which is available online at no cost https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/browse/ast. These journals include technical papers and review papers. Special issues are occasionally organized and published. The Society also publishes textbooks and reference books to promote acoustics associated with various topics. See https://acoustics.jp/en/.

###