The risk of psychiatric disorders in finasteride users with benign prostatic hyperplasia and androgenetic alopecia: A population-based case-control study

Background: There is a long-standing debate if finasteride, a medication used to treat benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) and androgenetic alopecia (AGA), can cause psychiatric side effects.

Objective: The goal of this large-scale population-based study was to determine whether finasteride therapy for BPH and AGA is associated with the emergence of mental health conditions.

Methods: This observational case-control study compared the data from patients with BPH who received finasteride 5 mg daily and patients with AGA who received finasteride 1 mg daily with age- and gender-matched controls. The incidence of psychological health outcomes such as depression, anxiety, neuroses, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, psychoses and alcohol abuse within 2 years of the initiation of finasteride therapy has been evaluated and compared between the finasteride groups and controls.

Results: The BPH group included 307 men with a mean age of 61.5 (±17.4) years and 1218 controls. Mental health outcomes recorded in 2.3% of the patients, with no significant increase in rate when compared to controls. The AGA group consisted of 23,227 men with a mean age of 31.4 (±10.3) years and 39,444 controls. Only One percent of AGA patients developed psychiatric disorders. In comparison to controls, patients with AGA had higher rates of anxiety and depression (0.6% vs. 0.4%, p = 0.04, and 0.5% vs. 0.4%, p = 0.007, respectively). In multivariate regression models, finasteride was found as one of the risk factors for anxiety (OR 1.449, p = 0.002) and depression (OR 1.439, p = 0.003) when stratified to age, sector, socioeconomic status and comorbidities.

Conclusions: According to our research, finasteride users had a very low rate of adverse mental health effects, with no increase in psychological sequelae in BPH patients and a slight increase in anxiety and depression in AGA patients.