This measure reflects the percentage of people, age 18 and older, who were treated with antidepressant medication treatment. This number represents the acute phase of treatment which includes people who stayed on an antidepressant medication for at least 84 days (12 weeks). 

Currently, only adult data is represented in this measure. The Division of Integrated Healthcare (DIH) is investigating how to show this same information for those younger than 18.

The trend line for this measure shows that the cohort of those who receive treatment and remain on anti-depressant medications is very stable and exceeds the target value. There is a steady increase in the percentage of adult patients who were started on an antidepressant and continued on the medication(s) for at least 12 weeks from FY 2020 to FY 2023. (Please note that the medication adherence is measured through pharmacy claims data.)  The early part of the trend line also shows a likely rebound from COVID but also, due to COVID, an increase in access to behavioral health services through the use of telehealth. There was a percentage decrease of 1.2% in FY 2024, with an upward trend of 2.7% from FY 2024 to FY 2025. The fluctuation may have been due to the confusion and uncertainty created by the Change Healthcare cyber attack on February 21, 2024, which blocked pharmacies from adjudicating claims. During the outage, the Utah Medicaid Pharmacy Team worked with pharmacies to allow patients to receive their medications with the promise that the pharmacies would still get reimbursed at a later time. However, delayed processing of claims may have impacted the reported data by: 1) pharmacies may have hesitated to process claims “for free” during the system outage, and 2) if pharmacies processed claims without reimbursement, the data could not be captured at that time until after the system became operational in October 2024. A patient may decide to discontinue an antidepressant when it is found to be ineffective in treating medical conditions other than depression during the acute phase of treatment.