Psychologists and psychiatrists should stop giving their patients prescriptions for antidepressants. The study showed that there is no reliable evidence of their greater effectiveness than that of ordinary pacifier pills.
Experts from University College London decided to check all the evidence available to science of the effectiveness of common antidepressants. The findings of the study were shocking: the effectiveness of these drugs does not exceed the effectiveness of placebo. In this regard, they called on psychiatrists and psychologists to stop prescribing antidepressants to patients, since there is no clinical evidence of their effectiveness. This is unpleasant news for millions of people who face depression every year.
Only in the UK, where this study was conducted, one in six adults takes these pills. But there are concerns about the consequences of their too active use, as well as the risk of withdrawal from antidepressants. In addition, these pills have quite strong side effects. The authors of the study urge doctors, if they prescribe these medications, then to a much smaller number of patients and for a shorter period. Otherwise, people will simply not be able to do without medicines anymore.
The study showed that most of the evidence for the effectiveness of antidepressants is based on observations that lasted only 6 to 12 weeks. In the final results, there were no clinically significant differences in the effectiveness of antidepressants compared to placebo. Earlier, British regulators called on local specialists to prescribe group psychotherapy to patients with moderate depression instead of pills.
