When most people think about the Nordic countries, they probably think about the people's quiet characteristics, the unbelievably beautiful landscapes, and, of course, the long winter - the long winter that has only a few hours of sunlight; the long winter that has many hours of dimness. Would the darkness impact people’s mood? I can’t say for sure without any scientific evidence proving the correlation, but Iceland does have the highest antidepressant sales, according to health data.
The Nordic Health & Social Statistics keeps the sales of antidepressant data for all Nordic Countries from 2004. And the beautiful little island country, Iceland, has a strikingly higher ranking on almost all categories and it’s continuing to rise.
There are five categories of antidepressant in the data in which four of them are clarified, and one is under the "other" category.
Several news outlets reported that the antidepressant pills are not only used for treating depression, it can be prescribed for other causes too, such as anxiety, social phobia, or ADHD.
Despite what you see from the chart, there is more investigation needs to be done and questions that need answers. In Iceland, if the pills are prescribed for other treatments, what is the scale of other causes, and why?
When clicking through the years listed in the data, we can see that Iceland has the highest growth rate in the past decade in antidepressant sales.
A study that’s published in 2004, done by four scholars, Daylight Availability: A poor predictor of depression in Iceland, has concluded that winter depression in Iceland is not the result of less availability of daylight. Illuminance affects the mood more often, and the quality of daylight and genetic factors should both be considered.
“Average daylight availability does not explain the lower than expected prevalence of winter depression in Iceland. The great variability in illuminance might, however, affect the expression of winter depression, as could daylight quality and genetic factors.”
