Scientists at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland analyzed five years of research on depression and concluded that both antidepressants and ECT have been given bad reputations that are undeserved, reports Health Day News
"The paper is a little bit corrective for what they call this 'moral panic' around the claim that antidepressants can facilitate suicidal ideation or behavior," said Dr. Jon A. Shaw, director of child and adolescent psychiatry at the University of Miami School of Medicine. "It's a judicious attempt to try to stabilize the debate, and really address what the empirical evidence really demonstrates."
Some 15 to 17 percent of people worldwide will suffer from depression over their lifetime. But only 25 to 50 percent of affected people get help, the study says.
Concern about using antidepressants was sparked after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration warned that serotonin reuptake inhibitors may increase suicidal behavior, particularly in children and teens.
The new study, published in The Lancet,
"The FDA is a cautious regulatory body, and they need to be cautious," said Dr. Catherine Birndorf, an assistant professor of psychiatry and obstetrics and gynecology at New York Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City. "On the other hand, it can cause hysteria because people take it to be cause-and-effect. They don't really understand that they (the FDA) are warning us there may be a correlation."
The study also supports the use of electroconvulsive therapy, known as shock therapy, for people who suffer from deep depression, particularly if it is accompanied by psychotic symptoms, reports Health Day News.
The public's fear of ECT as brutal and cruel are not accurate, said Birndorf.
"ECT is not considered for garden-variety depression," Birndorf said. "If it's more refractory, if other treatments have failed or it's suicidal depression and you don't have time to wait around to see if a medication is going to work, it's considered the gold standard of treatment."
