Western countries saw a huge increase in the use of powerful antidepressants and other mood-altering drugs for children in the first years of the century, according to a study.
The rise was the most spectacular in Britain, where doctors issued around 750,000 prescriptions for psychotropic drugs for patients aged under 18 in 2002, a rise of more than two-thirds over 2000.
Other nations with large increases during this period, but smaller ones than in Britain, were France, Spain, the United States, Argentina, Brazil and Mexico. There were lower increases in Canada and also in Germany.
Germany had the lowest increase of the nine surveyed countries -- a rise of 13 percent, also to around 750,000 prescriptions -- over the three years.
The biggest user of all was the United States, where 15 million prescriptions were written in 2002.
The category of drugs includes anti-depressants, stimulants, antipsychotics, benzodiazepines and other anti-anxiety medications.
"The use of psychotropic medications in children is a global health issue," the study says. "Children are not small adults."
Medication to treat mood or behavioural disorders is one of the most controversial in medicine today.
Campaigners say psychotropic drugs are being pushed by pharmaceutical companies as a solution for behavioural or social problems among children such as poor concentration, hyperactivity, aggression or even bedwetting.
But in many cases, these drugs are not licensed for use among children, they say.
The medications are approved by authorities on the basis of safety and efficacy on adults, and the dose is correspondingly reduced for children.
In 2003, pharmaceutical companies were obliged to scrap or scale back prescribed use among children of an antidepressant called selective serotonin uptake inhibitors (SSRIs), with the exception of the drug Prozac.
That move was hasted by evidence of an apparent link between those drugs and hostility, harm and obsession with suicide among patients aged under 18.
The latest study is lead-authored by Ian Wong of the School of Pharmacy at the University of London. It appears in Archives of Disease in Childhood, published by the British Medical Association (BMA).