Social Harms of Nonprescribed or Uncontrolled Use of Antidepressants

Abstract

Antidepressants are undispensable part of treatment in depression. In addition to this, they are not only restricted to depression treatment. It is well known that antidepressants are also widely used in treatments of subgroups of anxiety disorders. Moreover, they are frequently preferred in areas of medicine other than psychiatry, including pain disorders, migraine, fibromyalgia etc. treatment. Increase of antidepressant use was not found to be associated with increase of population and incidence of psychiatric illnesses 1. Obviously, apart from prescriptions of physicians, accessing easily to antidepressants via pharmacies is a reality in Turkey. This has been emphasized several times by the mass media 2-4. They also observe the misuse of antidepressants. The majority of reported cases of antidepressant misuse occur in individuals with comorbid mood and substance use disorders. The most common m o t i v a t i o n f o r a b u s e i s t o a c h i e v e a psychostimulant-like effect, including a desire for a " high " or euphoria. While it is important to recognize that the most majority of individu als prescribed antidepressants do not abuse them, it is also critical for psychiatrist to be aware of the potential for misuse and abuse when prescribing antidepresants 5. In addition to access, perceptions of the nonmedical use or abuse of antidepressants as being more socially acceptable and less stigmatized, may be contributing to increased rates of misuse 6. In my opinion, another possible reason regarding widespread use of antidepressants in Western countries is the support and expectation of strong ego and extroversion. Additionally, feeling strong of self with these medications p r o m o t e s l o n g p e r i o d o f u n n e c e s s a r y antidepressant use. Besides to its benefits, such a group of drugs widely used in all over the world, have some undesirable side-effects 7. In addition to physical side effects like weight gain, antidepressants can emerge psychiatric conditions including maniac and hypomaniac shifts that effect familial and social life. Furthermore, subsyndromal symptoms of hypomania are quite often in population under antidepressant medications. These people might have an inflated ego, affective flattening of positive or negative emotions, relative impaired reasoning and risky behaviours 8,9. As a result of these reasons, side effects of antidepressants, in particular …