Tuesday, February 15th, 2011
The number of children diagnosed with depression has more than doubled –between
1995 and 2002. This according to an article in the Journal of Adolescent Health.
Worse still, the use of antidepressants to treat the children has increased
while the use of counseling has decreased.
Between 1995 -1996, 1.44 million kids aged 7-17 visited a
doctor for depression. That number more than doubled to 3.22 million by the end
of 2002. As diagnosed adolescent depression increased, doctors started to
prescribe antidepressant drugs more and more, while recommending mental health
counseling less and less. These findings point to possible cases of
inappropriate prescribing to children, since accepted guidelines call for
children to be treated with mental health counseling or a combination of
counseling and medication.
This raises a red flag. If the goal of the medical community is to cure patients,
why would medical doctors simply
“medicate” the problem instead of work to “cure” the problem through mental health counseling?
The answer is directly related to the increase in drug
advertisements, perceptions that the drug is more effective than therapy and the
fact that drugs are more convenient than counseling.
How ironic, considering that last year the F.D.A. directed antidepressant manufacturers to
include “black box” labels on their products that warn of the increased risk of
suicidal behavior that has been noted in adolescents taking
antidepressants.
[Source: Journal of Adolescent Health, issue 12/05]
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