Post by Admin on Jan 5, 2021 12:03:00 GMT
The media bias against antidepressants is harming patients
psyche.co/ideas/the-media-bias-against-antidepressants-is-harming-patients
Imagine you’ve just returned home from an appointment with your family doctor. You told her how you’ve spent the past few months in a daze – barely sleeping, barely eating and unable to feel excited about anything in life. She suggested you might be clinically depressed and could benefit from antidepressants. This is exactly what you’d feared. You want the cloud to lift, but you don’t want to take antidepressants either.
Your doctor explained there’s strong evidence suggesting that the drugs work, and that she’s witnessed first-hand how antidepressants can benefit patients. And yet you’re not convinced. On the bus to the appointment you saw a news article describing how antidepressants ‘Can Make Depressed People TWICE As Likely To Think About Killing Themselves’. Last week, your friend shared a different article that declared ‘You Can’t Fix Life With A Magic Pill: DR MAX PEMBERTON Says Anti-Depressant Drugs Are Not The Answer To Feeling Down’.
Your doctor gave you some information leaflets, but before taking the drugs, you decide to research further and discover more articles that frighten you. Some even lead you to mistrust your own doctor, such as ‘Anti-Depressant Use Doubles In Past Decade As Doctors Dole Out Happy Pills’. And yet you also find a different side to what seems to be an active debate. ‘The Drugs Do Work: Antidepressants Are Effective, Study Shows’ says another article. Like many patients, you’re left confused. You worry that by trying antidepressants you’re choosing a side in a debate that even medical professionals haven’t resolved yet.
In recent years, the number of people seeking treatment for depression has increased in many parts of the world. Thankfully, we now have a variety of effective antidepressants. While research findings can be complicated and nuanced, a recent meta-analysis, published in The Lancet and led by researchers at the University of Oxford, looked at the results from 522 studies over the past 37 years and found that although some antidepressant drugs were more effective than others, all were more effective than placebos when treating adults with a major depressive illness. Although the exact mechanism of action isn’t fully understood, many antidepressants appear to work by increasing levels of chemical neurotransmitters, such as serotonin, in the brain. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are the most commonly prescribed first-choice treatment option.
psyche.co/ideas/the-media-bias-against-antidepressants-is-harming-patients
Imagine you’ve just returned home from an appointment with your family doctor. You told her how you’ve spent the past few months in a daze – barely sleeping, barely eating and unable to feel excited about anything in life. She suggested you might be clinically depressed and could benefit from antidepressants. This is exactly what you’d feared. You want the cloud to lift, but you don’t want to take antidepressants either.
Your doctor explained there’s strong evidence suggesting that the drugs work, and that she’s witnessed first-hand how antidepressants can benefit patients. And yet you’re not convinced. On the bus to the appointment you saw a news article describing how antidepressants ‘Can Make Depressed People TWICE As Likely To Think About Killing Themselves’. Last week, your friend shared a different article that declared ‘You Can’t Fix Life With A Magic Pill: DR MAX PEMBERTON Says Anti-Depressant Drugs Are Not The Answer To Feeling Down’.
Your doctor gave you some information leaflets, but before taking the drugs, you decide to research further and discover more articles that frighten you. Some even lead you to mistrust your own doctor, such as ‘Anti-Depressant Use Doubles In Past Decade As Doctors Dole Out Happy Pills’. And yet you also find a different side to what seems to be an active debate. ‘The Drugs Do Work: Antidepressants Are Effective, Study Shows’ says another article. Like many patients, you’re left confused. You worry that by trying antidepressants you’re choosing a side in a debate that even medical professionals haven’t resolved yet.
In recent years, the number of people seeking treatment for depression has increased in many parts of the world. Thankfully, we now have a variety of effective antidepressants. While research findings can be complicated and nuanced, a recent meta-analysis, published in The Lancet and led by researchers at the University of Oxford, looked at the results from 522 studies over the past 37 years and found that although some antidepressant drugs were more effective than others, all were more effective than placebos when treating adults with a major depressive illness. Although the exact mechanism of action isn’t fully understood, many antidepressants appear to work by increasing levels of chemical neurotransmitters, such as serotonin, in the brain. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are the most commonly prescribed first-choice treatment option.