Medication Statistics.
U.S. data on antidepressant and benzodiazepine use, effect sizes, and discontinuation. Citations on every number.
Medication is one of the most common ways anxiety is treated, and the use figures are large. National surveys put recent antidepressant use among U.S. adults in the low-to-mid teens by percentage, and past-year benzodiazepine use near one in eight adults. The average effect sizes for SSRIs and SNRIs in anxiety are small to moderate against placebo, which is a real benefit at the population level but smaller than many people expect.
Key numbers at a glance
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The data in detail
Antidepressant use by sex and age, 2015-2018
Share of U.S. adults who reported taking an antidepressant in the past 30 days, from CDC NHANES as reported in NCHS Data Brief 377. Use rises with age and is roughly twice as common in women as in men. These figures cover all indications, not just anxiety.
| Group | Past-30-day antidepressant use |
|---|---|
| U.S. adults overall | 13.2% |
| Women | 17.7% |
| Men | 8.4% |
| Adults 18 to 39 | 7.9% |
| Adults 40 to 59 | 14.4% |
| Adults 60 and over | 19.0% |
Source: CDC National Center for Health Statistics, Data Brief 377 (NHANES 2015-2018).
Drug effect sizes in generalized anxiety disorder
Standardized mean differences against placebo from the Hidalgo et al. (2007) meta-analysis of drug trials in GAD. These are averages across trials; individual response varies.
| Drug class | Effect size vs placebo (SMD) |
|---|---|
| SNRIs | ~0.42 |
| SSRIs | ~0.36 |
Source: Hidalgo et al., meta-analysis of pharmacotherapy for GAD, 2007.
Source by source
CDC National Center for Health Statistics
Tracks antidepressant use through NHANES. Across 2015 to 2018, about 13.2 percent of U.S. adults reported taking an antidepressant, with higher use among women than men. These are use figures, not anxiety-specific prescriptions.
Maust et al., 2019 (benzodiazepine use)
Using national survey data, estimated past-year benzodiazepine use at 12.6 percent of adults, most of it prescribed, with a smaller share reporting misuse.
Hidalgo et al., 2007 meta-analysis
Pooled drug trials for generalized anxiety disorder and reported standardized mean differences near 0.36 for SSRIs and 0.42 for SNRIs against placebo, with pregabalin and hydroxyzine in a similar range.
Discontinuation literature
A 2024 Lancet Psychiatry meta-analysis estimated that, after adjusting for placebo, roughly one in six people stopping antidepressants experience discontinuation symptoms, with severe symptoms much less common.
What the data isn't
- ·Antidepressant and benzodiazepine use figures cover all indications, not just anxiety, so they cannot be read as the share of anxiety patients on medication.
- ·Effect sizes are averages from trials with selected samples and short follow-up; they do not predict how any individual will respond.
- ·Discontinuation-symptom estimates vary enormously by drug, dose, duration, and how abruptly the medication is stopped, and by whether the study is a trial or an observational cohort.
- ·Use is not the same as appropriate use; survey counts cannot tell you whether a prescription matched guidelines.
Sources
How to cite
Medication statistics, AnxietyResearch.org, drawing on CDC NHANES antidepressant-use data, Maust et al. (2019) on benzodiazepine use, and Hidalgo et al. (2007) on drug effect sizes in GAD. Accessed 2026-06-24. https://anxietyresearch.org/statistics/medication-statistics
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