Antidepressants and Counseling for Treatment of Depression - Research Paper Example

Download file to see previous pages Highlighted are several issues that must be considered when reviewing the literature, including methodological problems, the placebo effect, trauma and depression, comparative safety profiles, and the marketing of antidepressants. Implications for mental health counseling practice and research, including the suggestion that counseling alone should be the first treatment of choice for most persons with depression, are discussed.

Depression affects 9.5% of the U.S. population 18 years and older (NIMH, 2008), and women suffer depression at twice the rate of men (Antonuccio, Danton, DeNetsky, Greenbert, & Gordon, 1999; Nemeroff et al., 2003; Stoppard, 1999). Worldwide depression rates have increased 1,000-fold since the emergence of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressants 15 years ago (Currie, 2005), and the World Health Organization (WHO) has predicted that by 2020 depression will be the second leading source of global disability (WHO, 2007).

Most persons with depression are treated by primary care physicians (Olfson, Marcus, Druss, Elinson, Tanielian, & Pincus, 2002), and 87 to 89 percent of U.S. physician visits for depression result in antidepressant prescriptions (Olfson et al; Stafford, MacDonald, & Finkelstein, 2001). The number of antidepressant prescriptions in Canada has increased exponentially, from 3.2 million in 1981 to 14.5 million in 2000 (Hemels, Koren, & Einarson, 2002), and the percentage of persons treated for depression with antidepressants in the U.S. jumped from 37.3% in 1987 to 74.5% in 1997 (Olfson et al.). Just as women are diagnosed with depression at twice the rate of men, they are given antidepressants at twice the rate (Munoz, Hollon, McGrath, Rehm, & VandenBos, 1994). Canadian statistics show that one in five women in the province of British Columbia was taking one or more SSRIs between 2002 and 2003 (Currie, 2005).

Given these statistics, counselors are likely to encounter clients (many of them women) who are taking antidepressants. Yet as Schaefer and Wong-Wylie (2008) found in their Canadian study, counselors vary considerably in their attitudes, practices, and training regarding antidepressants. ...Download file to see next pages Read More