70 percent of people taking an antidepressant aren`t even depressed
Over the past two decades, the use of antidepressant medications has grown to the point that they are now the third most commonly prescribed class of medications in the United States. Much of this growth has been driven by a substantial increase in antidepressant prescriptions by nonpsychiatrist providers without an accompanying psychiatric diagnosis. As the result, 70% of people regularly taking a powerful antidepressant don`t have depression, and they have never been diagnosed with any mental health problem. The doctors prescribing the drugs have no training in psychiatric disorders, a shocking new study has discovered.There has been a rapid increase in prescriptions for antidepressant drugs between 1996 and 2007 – from 59.2% to 72.7%. In the US, around 8.9% of the adult population takes an antidepressant. About 80% of the prescriptions were written out by general practitioners without ever referring to a specialist to confirm the diagnosis of depression, say researchers from the Bloomberg School`s Department of Mental Health. (Source: Health Affairs, 2011; 30: 1434 ).
