General practitioners prescribe SSRIs to children off label

EDITOR—Turner et al highlight the fact that children admitted to hospital are often prescribed unlicensed drugs and drugs given outside the terms of their product licence (off label).1 The appropriateness of such prescribing is uncertain, and a high rate of adverse drug reactions has been observed in children prescribed such drugs.2 The problem is not limited to hospitals. General practitioners may be asked to prescribe unlicensed or off label drugs by specialists or may consider initiating such treatment themselves. Little information exists on the extent of such prescribing in primary care.

We examined the prescribing of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors to children in general practice by accessing a computerised database of 100 British general practices (349 doctors) using the AAH Meditel System 5 computer system to enter medical records (Doctors Independent Network).3We determined the number of children aged 12 and under who had at least …