Antidepressant use up among those who aren't depressed

Are people taking antidepressants when they don't need the drugs?

Are we becoming a nation who needs drugs to wipe away our sorrows?

A new study by Johns Hopkins researchers suggests we could at least be headed that way.

Antidepressants have become one of the most commonly prescribed drugs, but not everyone who takes them has been diagnosed with a psychiatric condition, according to the research by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Much of the growth in the use of the drugs was driven by prescriptions written by doctors who weren't psychiatrists.

The results are featured in the August 2011 issue of Health Affairs.

Antidepressants are the third most commonly prescribed class of medications in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nearly 8.9 percent of the population had at at least one prescription in this drug class during any given month in the time period from 2005-2008.Nearly four out of every five antidepressant prescriptions are written by non-psychiatrist providers, according to Ramin Mojtabai, lead author of the study.

The number of times patients were prescribed antidepressants with no psychiatric diagnosis increased from 59.5 percent to 72.7 percent between 1996 and 2007, according to the study. The share of providers who prescribed antidepressants without a psychiatric diagnosis increased from 30 percent of all non-psychiatrist physicians in 1996 to 55.4 percent in 2007.

Source: The Baltimore Sun Health News