Antidepressant use
/v1/australia/health/antidepressant-use5¢ per callHow many people were dispensed an antidepressant each financial year from 2015-16 to 2024-25, as a count and per 1,000 residents, plus the prescriptions dispensed, for Australia and each state and territory.
Coverage: Australia and all 8 states and territories; financial years 2015-16 to 2024-25. Current to 2025-06-30. Full description, field list and method: /v1/datasets/antidepressant-use.
Authorization
Request
The only values you send. Fields under Responses below are what comes back — you never pass those.
Query parameters
fieldsstringoptionalComma-separated subset of: patients, patients_per_1000, prescriptions, prescriptions_per_1000. Omit for all.
fromstringoptionalFirst period to include: 2020, 2020-Q3, 2020-07 or 2020-07-01.
tostringoptionalLast period to include, same formats as `from`.
Responses
Successful Response
datasetstringalways returnedDataset slug; describe it with /v1/datasets/{slug}.
levelstringalways returnedsuburb, lga or block.
areastringalways returnedCanonical name (or mesh-block code) of the area answered.
period_typestringalways returnedsnapshot, year, financial_year, quarter or month.
as_ofstring · datealways returnedDate the dataset is current to. Values are never withheld for age; check this instead.
modelledbooleanalways returnedTrue when the figures are estimates from a model rather than counts or measurements.
fieldsarray of DatasetFieldSeriesalways returned/v1/australia/health/antidepressant-usecurl --request GET \
--url 'https://api.microburbs.com.au/v1/australia/health/antidepressant-use' \
--header 'Authorization: Bearer test'{
"data": {
"dataset": "antidepressant-use",
"level": "australia",
"area": "australia",
"period_type": "financial_year",
"as_of": "2025-06-30",
"modelled": false,
"fields": [
{
"field": "patients",
"name": "People dispensed an antidepressant",
"unit": "people",
"values": [
{
"period": "2022-23",
"period_start": "2022-07-01",
"value": 3686214
},
{
"period": "2023-24",
"period_start": "2023-07-01",
"value": 3737903
},
{
"period": "2024-25",
"period_start": "2024-07-01",
"value": 3820402
}
]
},
{
"field": "patients_per_1000",
"name": "Patients per 1,000 residents",
"unit": "per 1,000",
"values": [
{
"period": "2022-23",
"period_start": "2022-07-01",
"value": 140
},
{
"period": "2023-24",
"period_start": "2023-07-01",
"value": 139
},
{
"period": "2024-25",
"period_start": "2024-07-01",
"value": 139
}
]
},
{
"field": "prescriptions",
"name": "Antidepressant prescriptions",
"unit": "scripts",
"values": [
{
"period": "2022-23",
"period_start": "2022-07-01",
"value": 33394540
},
{
"period": "2023-24",
"period_start": "2023-07-01",
"value": 34227690
},
{
"period": "2024-25",
"period_start": "2024-07-01",
"value": 34553060
}
]
}
]
}
}About this dataset
Australia and all 8 states and territories; financial years 2015-16 to 2024-25. Current to 2025-06-30; refreshed yearly.
What it is
Antidepressant dispensing by state and territory and for the nation: the number of people who were dispensed at least one antidepressant prescription in the financial year, the number of prescriptions, and both as rates per 1,000 residents.
What it shows
For each financial year (July to June) from 2015-16 to 2024-25: patients (people dispensed at least one antidepressant), patients per 1,000 population, prescriptions dispensed, and prescriptions per 1,000 population. The period is the first day of the financial year. In 2024-25 about 3.8 million Australians, 139 in every 1,000, were dispensed an antidepressant.
Why use it
Antidepressant use is a widely used marker of community mental-health demand. The state gaps are large (Tasmania around 199 per 1,000 against the Northern Territory around 72), which matters for health-service planning, workforce and funding arguments, and for place-based stories.
How it is built
We count prescriptions dispensed through the national medicines subsidy scheme, including those below the subsidy co-payment, and the distinct people receiving them. Rates are per 1,000 residents of the state and are crude: not adjusted for age, so a state with an older population will rate higher. A patient is counted once per year in the state where they were dispensed, so state counts add up to within a few dozen of the national figure. Antidepressants are also prescribed for anxiety, pain and sleep, so the figures do not measure depression itself. Medicines supplied through some remote Indigenous health services are outside the scheme, so the Northern Territory is understated. Only state and national figures are published: there is no suburb, postcode or council breakdown of antidepressants alone.
Fields
| Field | Unit | Description |
|---|---|---|
patientsPeople dispensed an antidepressant | people | People dispensed at least one antidepressant prescription in the financial year. |
patients_per_1000Patients per 1,000 residents | per 1,000 | People dispensed an antidepressant per 1,000 residents (crude, not age-adjusted). |
prescriptionsAntidepressant prescriptions | scripts | Antidepressant prescriptions dispensed in the financial year. |
prescriptions_per_1000Prescriptions per 1,000 residents | per 1,000 | Antidepressant prescriptions dispensed per 1,000 residents (crude). |