Kerry Gibson, Claire Cartwright and John Read
BMC PsychiatryBMC series – open, inclusive and trusted 2016 16:135
Background
While mental health professionals have focused on concerns about whether antidepressants work on a neurochemical level it is important to understand the meaning this medication holds in the lives of people who use it. This study explores diversity in the experience of antidepressant users.
Methods
One thousand seven hundred forty-seven New Zealand antidepressant users responded to an open-ended question about their experience of antidepressants. This was analysed using content and thematic analysis.
Results
There was considerable diversity in participants’ responses including positive (54 %), negative (16 %) and mixed (28 %) experiences with antidepressants. Those with positive experiences saw antidepressants as a necessary treatment for a ‘disease’, a life saver, a way of meeting social obligations, dealing with difficult circumstances or a stepping stone to further help. Negative themes described antidepressants as being ineffective, having unbearable side effects, undermining emotional authenticity, masking real problems and reducing the experience of control. Mixed experience themes showed how participants weighed up the unpleasant side effects against the benefits, felt calmer but less like themselves, struggled to find the one or dosage and felt stuck with continuing on antidepressants when they wished to stop.
Conclusions
Mental health professions need to recognize that antidepressants are not a ‘one size fits all’ solution.
Mir gefällt dieser Text daraus gut:
It is important for mental health professionals to recognize that antidepressants are not a ‘one size fits all’ solution. They need to enter into dialogue with antidepressant users to explore the meaning antidepressants hold in their lives and the extent to which these enable or constrain their ability to make informed choices about their use. In making decisions about whether to take antidepressants, users should not be given misleading information about a known chemical aetiology in depression. They should instead be fully informed about the existing research on the efficacy of antidepressants relative to or in combination with psychosocial treatments [38]. In addition they might be usefully referred to research on user’s experiences [18] as well as receive full information about common side effects [27, 36] and withdrawal effects [28] so that they can make informed treatment choices.
http://bmcpsychiatry.biomedcentral.com/ ... 016-0844-3