This summer, two things happened that brought our overuse of antidepressants into sharp focus. Figures revealed that prescriptions have doubled over the last decade, and a group of experts wrote an article in the British Medical Journal, insisting that the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) urgently update their guidelines on antidepressant withdrawal.
The current guidelines for coming of antidepressants state that ‘symptoms are usually mild and self-limiting over about one week’. However, in their article, these experts argued that this is at best a gross underestimate, at worst, downright dangerous. ‘They don’t capture the reality at all’, says Dr James Davies, psychotherapist and reader in social anthropology and mental health at the University of Roehampton, who steered a review on prescribed drug dependence that led to the furore. ‘They underestimate the number of people who experience withdrawal, the severity and the length of time it lasts.’ His worry? If the guidelines are wrong, doctors who are following them will mismanage patients experiencing withdrawal.
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Sept-19
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