Overview

• Pharmacy dispensing data show pronounced post-holiday peaks that now center on February and March, with additional surges in September and October.
• Madrid accounts for 32% of pharmacy demand for antidepressants, followed by Catalunya with 18% and the Comunidad Valenciana with 14%.
• Anxiolytics remain the largest psychotropic class at 53% of volume, though units dispensed have fallen 2% compared with 2024.
• Cofares estimates that about four in ten people in Spain live with a mental-health problem, with anxiety affecting roughly 10% and hitting women and younger people harder.
• Health minister Mónica García highlights overprescription linked to overloaded public services and socioeconomic stressors, citing an April plan to add mental-health staff and issue guidance to curb prescribing.