Objective: To estimate the prevalence of antidepressant use in Brazil.
Methods: We conducted a systematic review with searches in MEDLINE, Embase, Scopus, LILACS, and SciELO up to May 2023. Two researchers independently selected studies, extracted data and assessed the methodological quality. We combined the prevalence of antidepressant use using meta-analyses of proportions by Freeman-Tukey and estimated heterogeneity by I². Odds ratio (OR) meta-analyses of antidepressant use by sex were calculated (men as reference) and between-study variation was explored by meta-regressions.
Results: Out of 3,299 records, 23 studies published in 28 reports were included. The overall prevalence of antidepressant use was 4.0% (95%CI 2.7-5.6%; I2=98.5%). Use of antidepressants in the previous 3 days was higher in women (12.0%; 95%CI 9.5-15.1%; I2=0.0%) than men (4.6%; 95%CI 3.1-6.8%; I2=0.0%), p<0.001; OR=2.82; 95%CI 1.72-4.62. Gender differences were particularly higher for antidepressant use in the previous year (women: 2.3%; 95%CI 1.6-3.1; I2=37.6% versus men: 0.5%; 95%CI 0.2-1.0%; I2=0.0%, p<0.001; OR=4.18; 95%CI 2.10-8.30). Between-study variation in the overall prevalence of antidepressant use significantly increased with participants' mean age (p=0.035; residual I²=0.0%; regression coefficient=0.003).
Conclusions: Four in every 100 Brazilians use antidepressants; use increased with age and was higher in women compared to men.
Keywords: Antidepressive agents; drug utilization; mental health; prevalence; systematic review.