Posted by SLS on May 16, 2013, at 22:39:49
In reply to Re: Antidepressants and suicide - Corrections, posted by poser938 on May 16, 2013, at 18:53:40
> One idea for the suicide rate going up since 2004 could be that there are fewer people seeing a psychologist.
Are there any data indicating that this is the case?
> But, definitely giving much more thought on prescribing chemicals for mild depression, since in mild depression there has not been shown to be a benefit over a placebo.
I'm not so sure that this is true.
Not all "depressions" are impelled by biological pathologies. I think we will see that the type of depressions that are not biologically-driven are more likely to be mild rather than severe; biological depressions more likely to be severe rather than mild. This would skew the the results and their interpretations. This proposition would offer a scenario that explains the results of the studies reporting that mild depression is no more likely than placebo to respond to antidepressants. My guess is that a biological depression that is mild in presentation will be just as amenable to antidepressant treatment than more severe presentations. In other words, antidepressants may indeed be significantly more effective than placebo once diagnostic devices become more precise and selective for the various types of mental illnesses that produce a state we call "depression". Of course, dysthymia is considered a relatively mild biological depression. Hopefully, the biomarkers now being identified will produce diagnostic tools to differentiate between the different types of depression.
> When antidepressants first came out it was thought they would only be used for maybe 1 in ever 1000 people.
What? Are you sure about that? I never heard of any such thing. I should think that the initial excitement over the discovery of antidepressants would lead psychiatrists to be more aggressive in their use the new miracle pills. However, I have no evidence to present you with regarding this. Do you have evidence indicating that there was a protocol suggesting that antidepressants be used in only 1/1000 (0.1%) of people?
> If psychiatrists used these meds how they're supposed to be used there wouldn't be near as much a controversy over them.
How are they supposed to be used?
- ScottSome see things as they are and ask why.
I dream of things that never were and ask why not.- George Bernard Shaw
poster:SLS
thread:1043726
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20130501/msgs/1043801.html