The number of antidepressant scrips written for children under 16 in the UK has quadrupled in the past decade, according to official figures, the BBC reports. General practitioners in England wrote more than 631,000 scrips for youngsters in the last financial year, compared to just 146,000 in the mid-1990s. But at the same time, figures suggest the rate of mental health problems in the young has not changed markedly. GPs rejected charges they dish out drugs too freely.

The figures were obtained by David Laws, the Liberal Democrat shadow children’s secretary. “I think it is a major concern that drugs seem to be prescribed so easily these days to children of school age,” he tells the BBC. “In the past, not only were there not as many of these types of drugs on the market, there was an assumption, I think, that people would try to get to the source of the problem, rather than simply prescribing drugs.”

The Department of Children, Schools and Family says it’s committed to helping “every child to have a happy and healthy childhood”. A spokesperson adds it recently pledged about $120 million to support schools working with “mental health practitioners and others to improve the emotional well-being of pupils”.

But there is also some debate as to whether mental health disorders really are rising within the young. In its last major report on the prevalence of such problems in 2004, the Office of National Statistics found the figures were broadly unchanged from a previous survey in 1999. One in 10 were found to have some form of disorder, ranging from the very minor to the very serious.

The latest figures follow others which suggest the rate of antidepressant scrips for the population as a whole has hit a record high. More than 31 million scrips for these drugs were issued in 2006 - a 6 percent rise over the previous year.

The Royal College of General Practitioners accepted that depression could nt be cured by pills alone, and that better access to alternative therapies was essential. However, its chairman, Mayur Lakhani, rejects the suggestion that family docs prescribe antidepressants too readily. “GPs consider the need for anti-depressants only after a careful assessment of the patient’s clinical condition,” he says.

Marjorie Wallace, chief executive of the mental health charity Sane, says: “While in some cases there may be a need for medication as part of a treatment plan, drugs should not be seen as the only solution. Children’s mental health problems need to be tackled at the root by making therapy more widely available, by examining the causes and by encouraging better awareness amongst children themselves, parents, teachers and GPs.”