OBJECTIVES: Depression impacts millions of people in the US; with many who aren’t treated due to provider shortages, lack of insurance coverage and costs. Comorbid anxiety typically coincides with depression. The primary objective of this analysis was to examine the prevalence of people who have a depression and anxiety diagnosis from 2018-2020. The secondary objective was to assess treatment patterns of newly diagnosed depression.

METHODS: Claims data were from Komodo Health, a healthcare technology firm owning databases that convey >330 million individuals in the US. Prevalence was estimated by assessing the number of people who had a code for MDD (ICD-10 codes F32X, F33X) and anxiety (ICD-10 codes F41X) concurrently in 2018, 2019 and 2020. Additionally, we assessed treatment patterns of people with newly diagnosed depression which was defined as people who did not have treatment claims of depression Rx / therapy and did not have prior MDD Dx. We evaluated people who had treatment codes after being diagnosed at 1 month, 6 months and 1 year. For people who received medications we evaluated the provider who prescribed the medication. Data were analyzed in R Studio v2022.02.0.443 (R Studio Team, Boston, MA).

RESULTS: From 2018 to 2020, among people with newly diagnosed MDD the prevalence of co-occurring anxiety was 44.4%, 46.9%, and 50.8%, respectively. Additionally, we found that at 1 month, 6 months and 1 year 52.8%, 45.2%, and 40.7% of people with newly diagnosed depression did not have any MDD treatment claims, respectively.