In an article in De Morgen about clinical depression and how to deal with it, psychiatrist Stephan Claes explains the use of antidepressants.
Antidepressants are the most commonly prescribed drug in Flanders to treat depression. More than 13 percent of adult Belgians used it in 2021, according to Domus Medica. “The most commonly prescribed is Sipralexa or Citalopram,” says Claes. “These are part of the SSRI family that treats 95 percent of depression.”
But in fact, antidepressants are only indicated for severe depression. “A large part of the group of people who take antidepressants suffer from milder anxiety and depressive symptoms that arise due to the pressure that life places on them. This group is more likely to benefit from different therapies and, for example, more exercise.”
But determining when someone is suffering from mild versus severe depression is very difficult and often remains a gray area.
“Researchers sometimes use Hamilton’s depression scale, in which all kinds of questions are asked and a score is assigned to determine the extent to which someone is depressed,” says Claes. “Psychiatrists hardly use this in clinical practice, because it is a time-consuming test for which you also have to be specifically trained.” In practice, three domains are therefore examined: emotional, cognitive and physical. “If these three are disrupted in daily life, we call it severe depression.”
Read the article | The morning
2023-10-11 14:52:30
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