Too Much Medicine For The Wrong Head Essay, Research Paper

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 correctly determine a child?s mental health professional needs to conduct a two to three hour examination (Koch 597). Most child and adolescent physicians see their patients for a sum of ten to twenty minutes at a time (Koch 598). According to psychiatric recommendations, physicians do not have time at all to make a viable assessment of a child?s mental health. Kids must be heard out concerning a variety of issues to separate childhood troubles from childhood depression.

On the other hand, many health professionals say that a child, in the turbulent times childhood presents, could not accurately describe their feelings. These primary care physicians rely on their own experience with children as well as parental explanations to determine the problem (Koch 598). By this method, many physicians claim, an accurate assessment of a child can be produced and children can be diagnosed. Psychiatrists also fear that primary care doctors and family physicians are not recommending troubled kids to mental health professionals. Without the aid of these professionals children cannot receive adequate treatment due primarily to the lack of psychotherapy. Martin Glasser, a Phoenix child and adolescent psychiatrist and spokesperson for the American association of Child and Adolescent Psychology, fears that prescriptions are written without a reference for psychotherapy (Koch 597). Sydney M. Wolfe, director of the Public Citizen Health Research Group, stated ?If its serious enough for antidepressants then its serious enough for psychotherapy (Koch 598).? Without an in depth discussion with a kid a professional cannot determine whether the child comes from a potentially toxic environment. The cause of childhood depression is just as important if not more important than the effect.

Some physicians write prescriptions for children without a thorough background check and send them back into the environment that caused the depression with only a pill. In their ten to twenty minutes with a child or adolescent a physician may not uncover the domestic violence or incest that caused the depression in the first place (Koch 598). A pill cannot cure a kid if the whole reason a kid is depressed is his or her home situation. Other physicians claim that often times such situations cannot be altered without the intervention of social services. And some cases just aren?t serious enough for social services to step in so pills remain the best defense (Herbst 108). This dilemma brings up the problem of financial backing and childhood mental illness. Not only psychiatrist and physicians have a say over mental medications, but managed-care companies also.

Medication is cheaper than therapy for adolescents and children so managed care companies tend to stress pills over talking. Managed care companies, who work with lower income families, assign family practitioners to handle depressive kids. These practitioners, often primary care doctors, do not have any formal training in childhood medication (Koch 598). They especially do not have four years of training in the mental health as well as pharmaceutical industries. Since the primary care doctor prescribes the medication they also monitor the child after the administering the drug. ?General practitioners can miss side effects that psychiatrists are trained to spot (Koch 598).? These practitioners lack training specific to mental illness so they remain clueless to dosage as well as if the child should even have the drug in the first place. The most alarming fact is that primary care doctors own the huge majority of prescription writing increases in the past few years (Koch 596).

Psychiatrists report an increase in adolescent prescription writing while non-psychiatrist prescription writing nearly doubled. This statistic indicates just how bad the over-prescribing issue is. In 1996, psychiatrists wrote one million prescriptions compared to 1998?s one point two million (Koch 596). Non-psychiatrists wrote two hundred and seventy-four thousand prescriptions in 1996 compared to well over a half million in 1998 (Koch 596). Not only do non-psychiatrists write a higher percentage of new prescriptions, they do not know exactly what they are doing. A survey conducted by the University of North Carolina said that seventy-two percent of pediatricians and family practitioners said that they prescribed antidepressants. (Koch 598). Sixteen percent of these people said they were comfortable with the practice and only eight percent said that they were trained to deal with childhood depression (Koch 598). 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. Unqualified personnel with the power to write prescriptions administer children drugs that not even the Food and Drug Administration has declared safe.

Antidepressants remain untested for use with children making thousand of kids into guinea pigs for doctor experimentation. This occurs because once the FDA approves any drug for adult prescriptions these same prescriptions can be ?off-labeled? to children (Koch 606). Such prescriptions could have very different side effects in children and adolescents than they do in adults. For instance, a medication that creates nervousness or agitation in an adult could cause a child to have a full-blown manic episode (Koch 606). These side effects pose dangerous problems to the kids that take them. It is true that ?five of the eighty miscellaneous drugs prescribed to infants are labeled for pediatric use (Koch 606).? This is a strong argument for child medication proponents. While these psychiatrists and pharmaceutical companies are not sure about the side effects of antidepressants they claim the benefits outweigh the dangers (Koch 607). Antidepressants may be worth the risk to children and adolescents with serious problems, however, those who do not must be looked out for. The huge number of prescriptions given out by less than qualified doctors affects a huge number of children who may not have serious depressive problems. This fact makes over prescription an even more alarming and dangerous practice. There are far too many symptoms associated with depression to label a problem strictly depression.

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. Symptoms such as poor self esteem or guilt run rampant in America?s schools. Such a sign can result from all sorts of sources other than mental illness. As well, this symptom may lead to other ?depression symptoms? that are still not depression related. These signs leave too large a gray area for an unqualified physician to make a mistake in leading to numerous unjust prescriptions for potentially mind altering drugs. In the Aldous Huxley novel, Brave New World, the government forces the society to take a mood stabilizing and euphoric drug called soma. 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). Some psychiatrists fear that as pharmaceutical technology grows other psychiatrist will prescribe drugs for a slew of mood disturbances (Koch 599). With the creation of ?social anxiety disorder? the psychiatric community may soon be prescribing ?antidepressants for shyness (Koch 599). After all, doesn?t everyone want to be emotionally perfect?

Other psychiatrists get angry at the idea of antidepressant over prescription. Jenna Wallace, director of communications for the National Foundation for Depressive Illness states: ?You would never be asking me this question about insulin injections for diabetes (Koch 599).? However, diabetes is a black and white disease with clear symptoms and clear treatment in the physical body. Depression is just about the grayest disease out there in the mental with countless unproven as well as unclear treatments. People don?t accidentally get put on insulin when they don?t actually have diabetes. Thousands of people see unqualified doctors and are subsequently placed on antidepressants. After all, the mind is the home of personality. Nobody wants to take a chance with screwing up the very thing that makes them who they are if they are not ill.

Herbst, Ann Colin. ?What?s Wrong With Our Children?? Parents? Magazine, Sept 1999. V74. i9, p108(5). (Herbst)

Koch, Kathy. ?Childhood Depression.? CQ Researcher, July 16, 1999. V9, i26. p593-616. (Koch)