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Psychiatrists Must Face Possibility That Medications Hurt More Than They Help
Mental health has declined as prescriptions for antidepressants and other drugs keep surging
Reporter Sarah G. Miller notes in “1 in 6 Americans Takes a Psychiatric Drug” that prescriptions for mental illness keep surging. As of 2013, almost 17 percent of Americans were taking at least one psychiatric drug, up from 10 percent in 2011, according to a new study. Miller elaborates:
“Antidepressants were the most common type of psychiatric drug in the survey, with 12 percent of adults reporting that they filled prescriptions for these drugs… In addition, 8.3 percent of adults were prescribed drugs from a group that included sedatives, hypnotics and anti-anxiety drugs, and 1.6 percent of adults were given antipsychotics.”
This increase in medications must be boosting our mental health, right? Wrong. In “Is Mental Health Declining in the U.S.?,” Edmund S. Higgins, professor of psychiatry at the Medical University of South Carolina, acknowledges the “inconvenient truth” that Americans’ mental health has, according to some measures, deteriorated.
Reporter Sarah G. Miller notes in “1 in 6 Americans Takes a Psychiatric Drug” that prescriptions for mental illness keep surging. As of 2013, almost 17 percent of Americans were taking at least one psychiatric drug, up from 10 percent in 2011, according to a new study. Miller elaborates:
“Antidepressants were the most common type of psychiatric drug in the survey, with 12 percent of adults reporting that they filled prescriptions for these drugs… In addition, 8.3 percent of adults were prescribed drugs from a group that included sedatives, hypnotics and anti-anxiety drugs, and 1.6 percent of adults were given antipsychotics.”
This increase in medications must be boosting our mental health, right? Wrong. In “Is Mental Health Declining in the U.S.?,” Edmund S. Higgins, professor of psychiatry at the Medical University of South Carolina, acknowledges the “inconvenient truth” that Americans’ mental health has, according to some measures, deteriorated.
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/psychiatrists-must-face-possibility-that-medications-hurt-more-than-they-help/?wt.mc=SA_Facebook-Share