ANTIDEPRESSANTS BEING PRESCRIBED NEEDLESSLY

ANTIDEPRESSANTS ARE OFTEN GIVEN
WITH NO PSYCHIATRIC DIAGNOSES

http://www.medscape.com - Antidepressant prescribing by nonpsychiatrist providers in the United States has increased substantially in recent years.  What’s particularly “worrisome,” say the report’s authors, is that a “large and growing” proportion of antidepressant prescribing by nonpsychiatrists happens without an accompanying psychiatric diagnosis.  “Many of the patients who are receiving these medications are dealing with the stresses of life or physical illness, and there is no evidence that antidepressants are effective in these groups of patients,” lead author Ramin Mojtabai, MD, PhD, MPH, from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland, said in a statement.  Dr. Mojtabai and coauthor Mark Olfson, MD, MPH, from the New York State Psychiatric Institute and Columbia University in New York City, examined national trends over 12 years (1996-2007) in antidepressant prescribing by office-based nonpsychiatrists. 

According to the results, the proportion of antidepressants prescribed for patients WITHOUT a psychiatric diagnosis increased from 2.5% of all visits to nonpsychiatrist providers to 6.4% between 1996 and 2007.  In contrast, antidepressants prescribed WITH a psychiatric diagnosis increased only slightly over the study period, from 1.7% 2.4%.   “In patients with very mild symptoms of mental disorders,” Dr. Narrow explained, “usually the best mode of action is to provide psychotherapy, behavior changes, exercise, and other lifestyle changes, which are often very effective, whereas antidepressants, for example, in very mild cases of depression, tend not to work very well.”  The study is published in the August issue of Health Affairs.

More Americans are being prescribed antidepressant medications by their doctors even though they were not given a psychiatric diagnosis, according to a new study.  Antidepressants are increasingly prescribed for people who have not been diagnosed with an actual psychiatric disorder.  Inappropriate prescribing of antidepressants can expose patients to withdrawal symptoms when they go off the drugs.  In addition, antidepressants are under increasing scrutiny for their side effects, which include weight gain, sexual problems, and diabetes.  

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US?

So with all this progress why the greatest medical problem is mental health, mental disease, depression. This is a serious problem today, depression and it’s not the problem is not amongst just the poor people. It’s the upper class, the aristocrats as well as the middle class. So much depression. Insanity, frustration, suicide, just people minds just burst with craziness, they just go on rape people, shoot people. ... So yes, so much tremendous progress but Prabhupada our Guru Maharaj said there is a pinprick in society. There is frustration, there is depression, and there is loneliness. The mind is simply not satisfied. The mind will never be satisfied no matter how much you money you make, no matter how much sex you have, no matter how much power you have, no matter how much position you have, no matter how much land you own. The mind will never be satisfied.

Śrīla Radhanath Swami Mahārāja :
“Conquering The Greatest Enemy”
http://www.radhanathmaharaj.net/content/conquering-greatest-enemy-radhanath-swami
http://www.radhanath-swami.net/  -  http://radhanathswami.info/