Читать реферат по английскому: "The Scary Truth Essay Research Paper The" Страница 1

(Назад) (Cкачать работу)

The Scary Truth Essay, Research Paper

The Scary Truth

A young woman walks into a psychiatrist s office. She is a few minutes early so she proceeds to sit down in the waiting room. The doctor s secretary calls the woman into the doctor s office. The woman sits down and the doctor begins to ask the woman about her problem. She tells the doctor that her father just recently passed away and she is experiencing difficult time dealing with the problem. The doctor patiently listens as she proceeds to talk. The woman tells the doctor that she is feeling emotionally depressed. With that, the doctor suggests that he prescribe a prescription medication to her. He informs her that this medication may help her feeling of depression. She agrees to take the medication and the session is over. The woman walks out of the doctor s office with a prescription slip in her hand and a feeling of relief. This is a prime example of how physicians are dealing with chronic depression today. People now rely on a pill as a form of relief for depression. Twenty years ago this was not the case. There were no pills to administer. People had to rely on the support of others. People would go to the psychiatrist and the doctors would specifically talk to the patients and try to understand the patient s problem as best he/she could. Today we are now using pills as well.

In the United States today, antidepressants are over prescribed to poorly diagnosed patients. People who often feel depressed turn to doctors who can prescribe medication. Sometimes with this professional help, psychiatrists prescribe antidepressants ; medication prescribed to patients in hope to prevent the feeling of depression. Patients have the right to make their decisions about their drug usage. Patients are not educating themselves enough on their usage of antidepressants and young children who are not fully medically educated are being prescribed antidepressants as well. Doctors rely on just a small amount of family history to determine the distribution of antidepressants. If the drugs are over prescribed wrongly, the drugs may react adversely and can affect the patient s life in way that makes them feel worse than when initially diagnosed. The paper by Priest et al (p 858) sheds light on patients’ reluctance to take antidepressants. A doorstep survey of more than 2000 people found that only one in six thought people suffering from depression should be offered antidepressants. The large majority considered them addictive. Most thought that depression was caused by adverse life events, and nine out of 10 thought that counseling should be offered. One example that may be taken into consideration by psychiatrists would be the idea of support systems. Support systems may create a decrease on the problem of over diagnosing antidepressants. The problem is though, the fact that there is obviously not enough support provided.

A well-known friend of mine was experiencing what she thought was depression which was mainly influenced by her parents recent divorce. She willingly decided to go see a psychiatrist. She informed the psychiatrist that she was very unhappy lately and that she was having trouble sleeping. The psychiatrist wrote a prescription for 30mg of Zoloft along with a mood stabilizer called Depakote daily for her depression, a stimulate such as Adderol or Ritalin and was also prescribed, and she was instructed to take a very strong sleeping pill at night. She went home and immediately started to take her newly prescribed medication. Immediately she was feeling overly happy . She said, I cannot try to even think of something unhappy or sad, when I start to, I immediately think of something funny or happy. She said that after a while (approximately two weeks later) she was feeling odd and abnormal. She also said that she was having more problems sleeping. So, willingly she decided to stop taking the medication that had been prescribed to her two weeks earlier. She switched psychiatrists. After informing her newly chosen doctor what her previous doctor had done, he informed her that she was prescribed too high of a dosage and to many medications were being prescribed once. Her new psychiatrist also said that this was very dangerous and unhealthy to be taking such strong medications with such large dosages. This is a prime example of antidepressants being administered in too large dosages than needed. As stated in the Journal of American College Health, “The number of antidepressants prescribed in 1997 was two and a half times greater than in 1990, rising from 1240 to 3050 defined daily doses per 100,000 population, that is, from usage by one in 80 people to one in 30. The rising rate of prescription of antidepressants suggests a recurrence of the barbiturate epidemic of the 1960s and 1970s (Morris 1999). The medication that is being prescribed may relate to the opinion of some that doctors are prescribing these antidepressants because of the idea that doctors are lazy and are not giving the ethical treatment that a patient deserves.

Another problem with the over administration of antidepressants would be the fact that antidepressants are administered to easily. Drugs, which are referred to as antidepressants, such as Zoloft, Prozac, Paxil, Celexa and Welbutrin are easily administered to the patients. These drugs are known as Tricyclic antidepressants. Although the actual effect of these drugs on patients with a lack of need for them is still relatively unknown the psychiatrists are still administering these drugs to their patients. Even in patients who are clearly depressed , the specific and individual benefits and/or effects can vary from person to person. It is obvious that these drugs still need to be researched more and are not ready for the mass usage and mass consumerism that occurs today. Research so far justifies antidepressants only for major depression, a diagnosis requiring the presence

Похожие работы