Too Much Medicine for the Wrong Head
Adolescent depression continues to be a growing American problem since its discovery in the 1970s. How exactly to treat this problem, however, is not a clear issue. For years the psychiatric community felt that psychotherapy was the best way to treat this growing epidemic. However, with the development of antidepressants, most famously Prozac, many people feel the problem is nearing a solution. Many psychiatrists believe these pills can be a quick and effective way to treat suffering adolescents. Many others believe this solution is too quick and too easy to be true. Unqualified personnel are over prescribing selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (antidepressants) to children and adolescents ignoring more time-consuming but effective treatments. Depression diagnosis remains a tedious task due to the many symptoms as well as the other mental illness that share these same indicators. One would believe that a licensed mental professional diagnoses children and thus writes prescriptions, however, primary care doctors write a large sum of child prescriptions (Koch 596). It is difficult to believe that these physicians are adequately assessing an adolescent's mental health. Psychiatrists believe that in order to correc
Medication is cheaper than therapy for adolescents and children so managed care companies tend to stress pills over talking. These primary care physicians rely on their own experience with children as well as parental explanations to determine the problem (Koch 598). Psychiatrists report an increase in adolescent prescription writing while non-psychiatrist prescription writing nearly doubled. With the creation of "social anxiety disorder" the psychiatric community may soon be prescribing "antidepressants for shyness (Koch 599). Often times children diagnosed with depression contain symptoms that are related to other mental illnesses, social problems, or mood disturbances that have nothing to do with a long term depressive disease. These side effects pose dangerous problems to the kids that take them. This dilemma brings up the problem of financial backing and childhood mental illness. While these psychiatrists and pharmaceutical companies are not sure about the side effects of antidepressants they claim the benefits outweigh the dangers (Koch 607). Not only do non-psychiatrists write a higher percentage of new prescriptions, they do not know exactly what they are doing. Many psychiatrists fear that primary care physicians and family doctors put thousands of kids on antidepressants that don't really need them while those that do continue to be ignored. Is this where America and maybe the world is headed? Many teenagers find themselves in situations that make them depressed for long periods of time except now, this teenager may be put on an antidepressant (Koch 599). These practitioners, often primary care doctors, do not have any formal training in childhood medication (Koch 598).
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